In May, it was announced by Wanaka’s Community Link a peak-time shuttle service might be launched within weeks.
The plan has now been set aside due to a lack of partners willing to support the service.
Community Link had surveyed residents asking where and when a shuttle would need to stop and how much people would be prepared to pay to use it.
‘‘We had great feedback but the message was that the service would need to be regular, consistent and ongoing and it was pretty obvious that it would take more than one vehicle to meet that need,’’ Community Link general manager Kate Murray said.
‘‘Some of the feedback we got [in research community transport services] was that community transport doesn’t make money anywhere in the country, so for it to be sustained and consistent, it has to have some government support,’’ she said.
The Upper Clutha has no forms of public transport and Community Link’s proposed service sought to fill the gap until public transport was available.
A small-scale community transport service would be unlikely to have a dramatic effect on the area, with a ‘‘bigger game at play’’ in the form of public transport, he said.
In April, Cr Smith said the council and the Wanaka-Upper Clutha Community Board had advocated for Otago Regional Council to take steps towards developing a business case for public transport for the area, which would ‘‘hopefully bring public transport to Wānaka much earlier than that 2036 time horizon’’.
The problem was that growing demand would continue to go unmet until then.
‘‘The demand is not going away and it’s only growing as the population is growing,’’ Ms Murray said.
In the ORC’s Regional Public Transport Plan 2025-35, the development of a publicly funded bus service in Wānaka was described as an ‘‘aspiration’’ that was ‘‘subject to funding and further study’’. It proposed the public transport service could be available about 2031 to 2036.
In March, ORC staff recommended to councillors a contestable fund be set up to support community transport schemes such as those proposed by Community Link, but councillors removed language about funding, deferring a decision on funding community transport until further planning had been undertaken.
