Back to Business for the Alliance in 2026.

NZ is waking up again after our annual holiday break and the Alliance is picking up where we left off at the end of last year.

There is plenty to do.

• We will continue with our legal campaign activity.
• We are still working with the Ombudsman.
• The new campaign for the safety data with the Cycleway will continue.
• The new ways we will work with the NPDC going forward have been confirmed.

Legal Activity and the Ombudsman

There have been a few comments that there is nothing to see legally with the situation of how the interim Water CCO position was created and how the interim CEO was appointed.

We have found those comments interesting as we asked a lot of questions about this beginning on 10^th October 2025, specifically asking for internal documents surrounding these decisions, and it is only with the assistance of the Ombudsman that we received answers to many of those questions – 42 working days after first requesting information. (Councils have 20 working days to reply to LGOIMA’s).

In mid December we finally received over 300 pages of internal documents relating to the first questions we asked.

Our next step is to go through this information.

We also still have other active LGOIMA’s due to be answered in the next month, and, we still have some active questions sitting with the Ombudsman, who are not yet back in the office for 2026.

We will keep you posted, where we can, as this progresses.

Cycleway Safety Data Campaign.

Following on from the Council meeting about the Devon St West Cycleway on 18^th December, where it became apparent to many new Councillors there is a distinct lack of data being recorded about the safety of all users of the Cycleway, we have started a campaign encouraging everyone to tell us when they see safety issues with anyone using the cycleway. Any close calls or damage to any person, cyclist, mobility device, scooter, or car. Any trips, falls, crashes, injuries. Anything that shows this cycleway is not safe for those using it.

We will have our first report out soon – with multiple incidents. Even at such a quiet time of the year with so many people on holiday and switched off from social media – there are still multiple incidents in our first report.

We will report on this every month and we really want to encourage people to tell us what they see, so we can educate everyone about what is really going on with injuries and near misses along this route.

We need help from the community to capture this data, bring it out in to the open, and to the attention of the NPDC.

New ways the Alliance will communicate with the NPDC.

In mid December 2025 we received confirmation after our meeting with Max Brough and two of the NPDC team of how we will communicate differently going forward. It has been agreed:

• We will have a direct contact at the Council to clarify information and ask questions.
• We will receive a copy of all press releases once they have been made public.
• We will be included as a Stakeholder group at the outset of Community Consultations. Being involved at the beginning when new initiatives start.
• We have had discussions about improving information with how councillor’s vote in meetings and clarity of information in minutes after meetings. This will be worked through to make improvements from how this has been done in recent years.
• We will have a quarterly meeting with Council Staff for us to clarify how the council is progressing with the key issues for Ratepayers: reducing rates increases, reducing running costs, improving efficiencies, and reducing debt.

Our intention with this new way of working together is to remove surprises for Ratepayers with what is happening at the NPDC, and for more of the community to be involved with input in decision making from the start of new initiatives.

These changes will be implemented early this year and we are looking forward to working with the NPDC in a constructive way on behalf of Ratepayers going forward.