News

We just wanted to let you know things are still moving along with the Ombudsman and our Water CCO legal activity.

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The Bell Block Community Board and NPDC Bell Block Spatial Plan Project Team set up a meeting the weekend after the election to get on with the Bell Block Spatial Plan. The newly elected officials had not yet been sworn in.

Something called Citizen Panels is part of this project and a lot of people have been surprised the NPDC is using this new concept which skirts around democracy.

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Last Tuesday we met with the new NPDC Mayor, Max Brough, and 2 of the NPDC team, to talk through how the Ratepayers Alliance can work more openly with the Council.

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We can confirm Agenda's and Minutes are something that is also a concern for the newly elected officials. And we tell you why this is important for Ratepayers.

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We had raised with the Council the links to the audit reports didn’t work. A link that does work is now in a Council Agenda.

We've done a summary of both Cycleway audit reports, and links to them are attached.

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The Daily News tells us in a headline on 18 November “Audit finds Tim Tam’s providing significant safety improvement”

According to this story “an independent audit report conducted by Beca New Plymouth” has reported on these significant safety improvements.

Independent how ? Beca New Plymouth designed the Public Health and Safety Plan
for Devon St West – so how on earth is the audit of their own work independent ?

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Murray Chong was in charge of the Mayor’s Office for 40 minutes last Monday morning as Max Brough was out of town, and his answers to the questions for the day did not go down well with other Councillors. And rightly so.

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Just to let everyone know we have now had an official response from the Ombudsman about our Water CCO complaint.

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As many of you will be aware we had discussions with a Law Firm when the closed meeting was arranged by the NPDC on 10th October, on the day before the election.

Over the last month we have been investigating and evaluating information regarding the appointment of the new Water CCO Board and new Water CCO Chief Executive.

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Sarah talks about Ratepayers groups and The Taxpayers Union spreading misinformation and disinformation, saying we are pretending to be everyday people but instead suggesting we are "far right" political groups with an agenda.

We call Sarah out about some of her comments.

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Max won more than twice as many votes as his nearest rival, David Bublitz.

The majority of the voters in New Plymouth gave Max Brough a strong message that they like his policies and direction.

Click on the blue heading above to learn more about some of his plans.

Click on the blue heading above to see the final results for the election. This includes the number of votes per day and the full breakdown of candidate votes and which officials were elected for 2025.

It is time for hundreds – if not thousands of us – to speak up and be heard – and ask the authorities who look in to inappropriate practices with Government Agencies to look at what has been done in New Plymouth in the last few days.

Click on the blue heading above to find out what we need you to do.

This Annual Report is audited by a Government Auditor – to check that what the Council says the figures are – the Auditor agrees with.

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The Alliance has been having an interesting few weeks with the outgoing elected officials at the NPDC. We had 2 attempts to speak for 5 minutes before a Council meeting. We didn’t manage to get put on an agenda – yet speaking at a public forum can only be denied on a few grounds.

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And in this meeting – which will be closed to the public - they will make a very important decision – appointing the board members for the new Water CCO. Apparently, there is urgency to make this happen as the new entity has to be fully in place in JUNE 2027 !!!

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It’s weird when you get involved in finding information about the Council, often over your morning coffee, and you’re looking for one thing, in this case a meeting date and time, and while looking for that, you discover a very tiny bit of information that is actually quite big.

This is one of those bits of information and a result of the Sports Hub project.

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They did a great job, did some good research on the candidates, and asked some great questions. There was a bit of humour thrown in - and a bit of jeering here and there from the crowd – from both sides.

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Here at the Alliance we have been making no secret that we need a majority of 8 people sitting around the NPDC Council table who will say no to the constant spending on projects we do not need at this time.

RNZ Local Democracy Reporting, in one paragraph of an article in the Daily News – which has absolutely no connection to the death threat event which occurred for Sam Bennett on Thursday 18th September - tries to imply – somehow – that the Ratepayers Alliance and the Taxpayer’s Union had some sort of influence on the alleged death threat Sam Bennett received last week.

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A few misleading things have been said in the last few weeks by officials who have been part of our Council over the last term.

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