Sam Henderson looks at highlights from the Waikouaiti Coast Community Board
Roading concerns
During the public forum, Ron Park, of Warrington, addressed several issues in his area.
Mr Park asked for street lights to be placed on the Warrington side of the turn off from State Highway 1.
He highlighted a fence that needed fixing on an alley track between Hill Rd and Warrington School.
Mr Park questioned the quality of road sealing, saying some areas that had been recently resealed had already broken up.
Footpaths also came under scrutiny, including one to Evansdale that he described as a "goat track" since it last had work completed on it.
"It was nice when they did it, but it’s had no maintenance done on it."
Potholes were also highlighted, with several appearing recently.
After discussion to clarify issues, deputy chairman Andy Barratt agreed to meet Mr Park to prepare a full list of issues to take to the Dunedin City Council, and pass on lighting issues to NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi via the council’s transport department.
Funding to heritage centre
The Waikouaiti Coast Community Board agreed to provide the total of its remaining discretionary fund to the Waikouaiti Coast Heritage Centre.
The funds of $1952.65 will go towards stabilisation of a chimney at its historic former BNZ Bank Building, built in 1869. The estimated cost of the project is more than $14,000.
In its submission letter, Waikouaiti Coast Heritage Centre treasurer Shirley McKewen said a community survey undertaken last year asking about retaining or removing a veranda (added in the 1920s) determined that twice the number of respondents wanted the veranda removed.
This work was estimated to cost more than $184,000 and restoration of the building as a whole is estimated to cost about $1million.
Growing population
The board will consider updating its community plan at its next meeting in August.
With rapidly evolving changes in the area, board member Geraldine Tait highlighted the need for fresh population data. Warrington in particular had grown considerably and future submissions would need to reflect that.
This information would likely come from Stats NZ, but there was some debate if detailed data would be broken down sufficiently into small areas.
Resilience workshop
Mr Barratt expressed approval with the recent outcome of a community resilience workshop attended by Dunedin City Council staff, representatives from Emergency Management Otago and local community boards.
"At long last it actually spells out quite clearly what the community board role is and how it is supposed to fit into the overall scheme for emergency preparedness management."
A crucial distinction was made between agencies responsible for managing and emergency and groups involved in building community resilience. The aim is to ensure resilience groups are set up in appropriate areas, and that each group would include a community board member.
Community boards are anticipated to be the link between resilience groups and emergency operations centres, ensuring lines of communication are not overwhelmed.
A new community resilience fund of $100,000 had been allocated and funding requests from resilience groups were to be submitted to community boards to consider and put forward to the DCC.
