A big project marred by delays, the closure of a community pool, and the promise of a second bridge. Local Democracy reporter Jonathan Leask looks back at the big decisions and controversies for Ashburton in 2023.

Delay after delay

Ashburton's council wanted to deliver in 2023 didn’t happen after a string of delays.

The marquee opening of the town's $56.7m library and civic centre is now slated for January 22, and even that isn’t fully guaranteed.

Council chief executive Hamish Riach announced in February the completion date for the new library and civic centre had been pushed back from mid-2023 to the fourth quarter of 2023.

It wasn’t the first time he had to announce a delay of the project – the original completion date was the end of 2022 – and it wasn’t the last.

The news got worse in April when a blowout of up to 10% of the $56.7m budget was forecast, and that was before the additional timeline delays.

The new library and civic centre was gifted an updated “more appropriate” name of Te Whare Whakatere from Te Runanga o Arowhenua in August.

The council came under fire from Historic Place Mid Canterbury in September after it was revealed Cavendish Chambers building would be demolished for a carpark.

In October, an official opening date was finally set for December 18, but that too would be pushed back.

A few weeks later, Riach announced the building would not be ready by December 18 due to construction delays.

Instead, the library opening was pushed back until January 22 with plans to relocate council staff by December 18.

Following the pattern that plan also suffered delays with council staff ending the year working from home ahead of a now-planned start date in the new building on January 22.

Bridge boost

The long crusade for Ashburton’s second bridge got bipartisan support in the lead-up to the election to fund its construction, and now the council is eagerly awaiting some concrete plans from the new Government.

National had pledged to start building it in its first term. All eyes are now on the Government's planned revision of the land transport plan to see just when work will begin.

In or out

The big cloud hanging over the council all year has been Three Waters – and whether or not community-owned assets would be handed off to central government control and no longer be the council’s problem.

The November election provided an answer, of sorts.

Labour’s affordable water reform, the updated version of the three waters reform, will be repealed, but the reforms are not dead.

The new coalition Government will replace it with its own version, but there are a lot of unknowns about when and how it will work.

Ashburton is a council that has invested in its drinking water, wastewater and stormwater networks.

And it will continue to do so to meet the standards set by the national water services regulator Taumata Arowai.

A big tick for the council was the opening of the new membrane treatment plant in Methven, signalling an end to the boil water notices that have plagued the town.

Not only is her phone not ringing every time it rains, but deputy Mayor Liz McMillan is adamant the water tastes better now too.

Tinwald Pool

The future of the Tinwald Pool is murky at best. It will not open this summer after it was found to leak 17,000 litres a day, the plant is failing and there are lifeguard shortages.

The lack of lifeguards forced the early closure of the pool last summer and it was then the extent of the pool's issues were identified.

After the council's decision not to open it this summer, the community rallied around the last outdoor community pool in town by presenting an almost 900-signature petition calling for the pool to be saved.

A potential $3m rebuild of the facility is being considered as part of the long-term plan but it has not been signalled as the preferred option.

Turtle town

Longbeach principal Neil Simons celebrated the council’s decision to create 30kph variable speed zone around the school after a 14-year wait.

However, the introduction of the 30kph permanent school speed zones in urban areas was not so well received.

Introduced in July, just over a month later Mayor Brown was questioning the speed reduction's effectiveness – not in terms of keeping students safe during school hours, but drivers complying outside of school hours and on weekends.

That was the “told you so moment" for Grant McFaul, who had pleaded with the council not to “turn Ashburton into turtle town” during the consultation period.

But he accepted the council was being “hamstrung by dopey legislation”.

The speeds will be reviewed in February, with the new Government signalling they will tweak the legislation to allow the fixed signs to be time-specific without the need for the expensive electronic signs.

Tinwald Corridor

Work began on the Tinwald corridor with a mixture of optimism and scepticism it would go smoother than the 18-month Walnut Ave upgrade and finish much earlier than the estimated 10 months.

In April, councillor Richard Wilson didn’t hold back on describing the project as a poor outcome compared to the bigger-picture benefits of the second bridge.

Fast forward a few months and as mentioned above, the second bridge has a much more certain future.

There has been good progress on the roadworks, but it has had a major impact on Tinwald retailers, with the new traffic lights set to be switched on early this year.

Roads in ruin, again

Another severe storm in June caused more than $1m of damage to the roading network – although not in the same ballpark as the $2.5m from the July 2022 floods.

During the heavy rain, the closure of the SH1 Ashburton/Hakatere River Bridge was announced prematurely by the Mackenzie District Council via its social media channels. They later issued an apology to their Ashburton counterparts.

Then there was the debris from the flooding piled up at the bridge, which NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi said on August 3 would be cleared “in the next fortnight”.

It wasn’t, and the two-month delay in clearing the flood debris from a SH1 bridge was “not acceptable” to Mayor Neil Brown.

Glow Festival

Glow in the Park has around 17,000 attend across two nights this year, with the third night rained off.

That was a 70% increase in attendance, which caused gridlock traffic in town and eventually led to the council deciding to move the event from Tinwald Domain to the Ashburton Domain in 2024.

The move was aimed at allowing the event to expand and alleviating the congestion issues created by its popularity, but there were concerns the move could come with a budget increase from $60,000 to $100,000.