Tuesday 9 June 2009

Balclutha Main Street upgrade gets nod

Balclutha’s main street looks likely to get a makeover within the next four years, after Clutha District councillors last week agreed to leave plans for a $2 million upgrade in its Long Term Council Community Plan.

Chief Executive Charles Hakkaart said the project has been discussed for many years, and has previously progressed to the stage where landscape plans have been drawn up and intensive public consultation undertaken. “However, when the costs were considered the project was shelved.”

While some submitters to this Long Term Plan indicated that they felt the project was too expensive, councillors felt the main street project had been in the ‘too hard basket’ for too long.

“You only have to drive around other parts of the country to see that Balclutha, and other parts of this district, have fallen well behind when it comes to the appearance of their main street,” Cr Hamish Anderson said.

Cr Anderson said a main street upgrade for Balclutha was well overdue, and there would never be a cheaper time to undertake the work.

His sentiments were shared by most other councillors, who felt there was no benefit in what was essentially an inevitable project being postponed further.

The project is still at the ‘ideas’ stage and extensive public consultation will be undertaken over the next two years. The construction stage of the project is proposed to begin in 2012/13.

The project will be funded 80% by Balclutha ratepayers and 20% by ratepayers across the district. This approach recognises the district-wide benefit and the same funding model will be used for all main street upgrades into the future.

Mr Hakkaart said that it appeared from submissions received that some Balclutha ratepayers were unaware they were already contributing towards the main street. A medium value property already pays about $27 a year, and when the improvements go ahead in 2012/13 this would rise to about $58 a year, while all ratepayers throughout the district (including Balclutha) would contribute an extra $4.30 a year.

ENDS