Plenty of work to come

• By Andy Baker, Franklin Ward Councillor

My first column since the council election last year, and I just want to thank everyone who first took the time to vote, and secondly, supported me.

It is a sincere privilege to be able to battle away alongside the Franklin Local Board to try to make sure Franklin is not forgotten, that we get the best out of being part of Auckland, and to try to make sure our Governing Body makes sound decisions. None of that is easy, I can assure you.

I am delighted that Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has continued to show trust in me by appointing me to continue as the Chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Delivery Committee, one of the major committees made up of all councillors.

Our role is to oversee the nearly $4 billion capital delivery programme each year, manage the opening and early operation of the City Rail Link (CRL), continuation of the Blue Green Network and Making Space for Water stormwater programmes, and the transformation of Auckland Transport, with many of their functions coming back into council.

We will also be working on the investigation of a possible congestion charging regime now that the Government has passed legislation allowing councils to adopt such schemes.

So, there is a huge amount of work coming, particularly within this first year of the term, which is extremely exciting. It is some planning work we will be working on with the government that I believe is at the top of the priority list for the region.

For too long, we have not looked far enough into the future to try to plan what we need in a long-term manner. Instead, both central and local governments have drifted along, coming up with plans that are subject to the vagaries of our three-yearly electoral cycles.

We now have the opportunity through the city and regional deal mechanism, and hopefully bipartisan party support, to come up with both a 30-year transport plan and an infrastructure plan.

To map out what we need over this period and remove politics from it when identifying those needs. Plainly, there will be politically driven prioritisation and preferences when it comes to the provision of the things in the plan, but we need to ensure we avoid the recent debacles of the light rail and second harbour crossing, which became political vanity projects costing millions and delivering nothing.

Council can similarly look longer term at our facilities and other needs, empowering local boards to plan ahead.