From the Mayor

Martin Connelly

I want to spend some time on the role of the Community Board. Not every council in the country has community boards. The South Wairarapa has three: Greytown, Featherston andMartinborough. 

Community Boards provide a mechanism for bringing council decision-making closer to citizens and communities, enabling community input on community services. An effective board enables decision-making to better respond to local needs.

Martinborough has a particularly energetic Community Board and I urge any of you with concerns about council services or ideas for improvement, to engage with your Board.

To demonstrate how this can work: earlier this year your Board came to the council with a proposal for improving the way the Pain Farm is managed. The council listened and set about turning the Board’s ideas into reality. The results should be evident next month.

Having a local Community Board provides an opportunity for residents to improve how the council operates in Martinborough. And not just in Martinborough village, for the board has held drop-in sessions throughout the district.

At the end of September your Community Board held a very well planned “Community Emergency Hub Open Day”. This brought together many local groups and emergency services. This day was part of the Martinborough Community Resilience Project. I am aware that not everyone thinks being prepared for a disaster is so important. But disasters do happen, and when they do it will be our neighbours and local community that will supply help first. 

I thank the Community Board for what it does to help us all help each other.

Alongside Masterton and Carterton, your Council has just released a “Proposed District Plan”. The Resource Management Act requires councils to have a District Plan, and to review them every 10  years. We developed ours jointly with our two neighbouring councils.

In simple terms, a District Plan controls what people can do on their land and how that land can be developed. The purpose of the Plan is to manage the natural and physical resources of the South Wairarapa to meet the needs of current and future generations. 

The Plan tries to balance the need for growth with good environmental outcomes. For example, it has rules regarding the minimum size that sections can be subdivided into, and it also has rules protecting natural features and heritage buildings.

While the Plan is district wide, it also has sections relevant to each part of the region. For example,

there is a list of notable trees in Martinborough. A notable tree is a tree that the community (or sometimes the Nation) regards as having special importance. Having it listed in the District Plan offers it some legal protections.

You can see the proposed Plan here: https://www.wairarapaplan.co.nz/ 

It is possible that there will be aspects of it which some people do not approve of. People can make submissions on the Plan. The submission form is at: https://www.wairarapaplan.co.nz/feedback along with the address to email your submission to. 

Closing date for submissions is December 19, 2023.

Community Emergency Hub Open Day and Practice

By Angela Brown,  Community Board

The Martinborough Community Emergency Hub open day and practice event, which was held on Saturday 30 September, saw over 70 people turn up.

Among the attendees were representatives from various community groups including the  Foodbank, Men’s Shed, Lions Club, Toy Library, Community Market, Community Patrol and Business Association.

The event also attracted a delegation of emergency support people from Hawkes Bay who are looking at adopting the WREMO (Wellington Region Emergency Management Office) Emergency Hub model into their own communities. 

They have offered to come and talk to our community about what happened during their real emergency response earlier this year. We hope to get them back after Christmas to share those  experiences.

A big ‘thank you’ also goes to Vivienne from WREMO for facilitating this and the previous two

events the Community Board has hosted over the past few months, and to Nigel from SWDC who has been really involved to ensure the success of this Resilience Series.

The group was able to discover first-hand what could function well and what needed to be modified for this community, and feedback from those who attended will help with future planning. 

Just as the Community Hub is about the people, the success of the event was due to the people who took time to engage.

Bec Reilly, owner of Ventana Creative Collection, offered her services as a facepainter to engage with the children, while Jojo Cutforth kept everyone refreshed by operating a community tearoom. Sausages were cooked by members of the Bowls Club and Neighbourhood Support came along to assist. Several elected members also took part in this community effort.

This has been a strong and successful start to one of the important objectives identified as part of

the Community Board Plan for 2023. So what’s next? 

We have members of our community who want to continue to engage and work collaboratively with the Community Board on a Martinborough Resilience Project. If you would like to know about this please get in touch:

Angela.brown@swdc.govt.nz

Community Hub ready to roll

The government (note, small “g”) is coming to town in the form of a Community Services Hub which in Martinborough will be under the direction of Heartland Services. 

The Jellicoe Street unit which opens shortly funded by MSD (Ministry of Social Development) will be the 41st across the country “offering a range of (government) services tailored to local needs.” 

The facility, said manager Hana Makin “is an exciting new space for the Martinborough and rural South Wairarapa communities to come and connect with government and non-government services kanohi ki te kanohi: face to face.”

Most of the Heartland Services centres are located in rural communities which don’t have easy access to the range of government services located in bigger towns.

“I’m really looking forward to connecting more with local people and supporting them to access the support they need,” she said.

Martinborough Heartland Services will have two staff in-house, as well as REAP Wairarapa Adult and Community Education staff, Building Financial Capabilities, and Youth2Work Wairarapa team members. 

“We will be open five days a week. Planning for services is still under way, but at the minimum the centre will provide:

_email and phone facilities;

_access to government forms;

_access to technology (print-photocopy-scan)

_access to government and non-government service websites; 

access to face-to-face or virtual appointments with government and community services; 

_assistance in making government appointments, with the ability to direct the community to services they need.

A detailed “wish list” of services has been circulated for the community to indicate what it most needs from the new hub.  

“Heartland Services Hub differs from community to community. They are a friendly place to ask questions and get help from government agencies,” Makin noted. 

Darren Kerr, CEO of REAP Wairarapa, said he’s excited about the project. 

“This is a great opportunity for REAP Wairarapa to lead a project that will ensure people are able to connect with government services they have not previously had the opportunity to access.”

Maori Ward by 2025 elections in South?

“The times have changed,” is the only pointer South Wairarapa councillor Pip Maynard could give over the prospects of a brand new Maori Ward being included in the election process for SWDC in 2025.

Maynard is helping work through the process as liaison between council and the Maori Standing Committee, which has been consulting local Maori Iwi and hapu in recent months. 

An earlier move to establish Maori Wards for the 2022 election failed, a decision Wairarapa Iwi noted as “disappointing.” 

“The Maori Standing Committee is engaging to see what the appetite is for establishing a ward” among mana whenua, she told The Star.

“A lot of work has been done to ensure the voice of the Maori population of South Wairarapa has been heard,” she added, but said she was “not going to go there” when pressed on what the responses were across the rohe. 

Maynard said “it’s a work in progress” and the project is “about representation, not just a Maori Ward. It is a very important issue.”

While the issue had been “consulted in the past, there was not the appetite” for the idea. “The times have changed,” she added.

Two previous reviews (2012, 2018) have declined to introduce Maori Wards to SWDC, despite legal requirements to ensure “fair and effective representation for individuals and communities in local government.”

Earlier this year an independent panel confirmed “a radical overhaul” and stronger relations with Maori were needed.

A recent Martinborough Community Board meeting was told one Maori Ward would be warranted on the basis of the 2022 census data. … Continue Reading