Rubbish rethink: Victory for Moore

MOANA BURT | 3rd February 2006

City councillors have found an escape clause in their controversial decision over the future of kerbside recycling collection that may appease angry ratepayers.

Yesterday's weekly council meeting was expected to be a volatile affair after Mayor Garry Moore and councillors traded sharp comments at the December 20 meeting.

Then councillors voted seven to four in favour of one of three options for rubbish and recycling collection in the city. They did not support the scheme favoured by city residents who made submissions about rubbish collection.

Nearly half of the 3000 submissions wanted a combination of a recycling wheelie bin, an organics (kitchen scraps and garden waste) wheelie bin, and user-pays rubbish bags.

Instead city councillors voted for a recycling wheelie bin and 26 rates-funded rubbish bags with no rates rise needed ? which does not meet national or Christchurch's own waste reduction targets. The residents' favoured scheme would have added 1.5% to the city's rates bill.

Mr Moore favoured the residents' choice, known as option three, and criticised councillors who voted against it at the December 20 meeting.

Councillors responded by saying they were exercising their democratic rights.

Yesterday's turnaround by councillors is a major victory for Mr Moore. Spoken to by The Star after the meeting Mr Moore said he was very happy with the outcome. Since the December 20 vote he had been inundated with letters from the public voicing their concern over the decision.

Councillors had "pulled back from the precipice", he said. The re-opening of the issue was prompted by a council staff report requested by councillors. The report urged councillors to note the implications of their decision in December.

Legally councillors could not change their decision but at yesterday's meeting were able to put forward a motion that may allow them to switch to the scheme preferred by the public in the future. The motion was put forward by deputy mayor Carole Evans and passed by the council.

The mood of yesterday's meeting was summed up when Mr Moore said: "I think we're in great danger of agreeing on this if we listen to each other."

"We are not saying 'which option?' but how we get there ? that's what this meeting is all about," he said. "I want to try to find some room for those entrenched in option three and those entrenched in option one to find some common ground," said Mr Moore.

Staff will report to the council at next week's meeting on how to incorporate "quantified flexible means" for waste management into the Long-Term Council Community Plan 2006-16.

This means staff will have to show the council options on how to move rubbish collection towards meeting waste minimisation targets, and the likely cost for this.

Chief executive Lesley McTurk said that by voting for the motion councillors would be confirming they were working towards the waste reduction targets. Councillors needed to signal the broad direction that they were moving towards so that financial provisions could be made in the long-term plan.

Councillors agreed they should meet waste targets but that there would be difficulty in meeting these in the time set out in the council's draft Waste Management Plan 2005.

Cr Anna Crighton said she hoped the inclusion of a direction in the long-term plan would "buy time" for the councillors to look at other options.

Cr Wells said the council was committed to the waste plan goals, but was still working out how to meet them. "Option one is a stepping point along the way," she said.

Cr Pat Harrow said another rate rise would be too tough on ratepayers and was the only councillor to vote against keeping to the targets set in the council's waste plan. "We need to change the dates of our goals," he said.