A merger for Wellington?

Stuff reports:

Stuff understands there is growing consensus amongst the region’s leaders that the councils can no longer continue as is, and will eventually need to amalgamate. …

There have been a number of proposals. These included:

One Greater Wellington Regional Council – encompassing all the councils, including Wairarapa. This was the option floated in the early 2010s and was highly unlikely to be re-promoted.

Establishing three or four councils: A Hutt Valley council, a Wairarapa council, and a Porirua-Wellington council which may or may not include Kāpiti District Council.

From discussion with city leaders, the most likely option was a Wellington council encompassing Porirua – potentially Kāpiti – the central city and entire Hutt Valley.

The status quo in Wellington is not great. We do have to many Councils and Wellington Water shows the weaknesses of the status quo.

Fewer Councils would be good in terms of efficiencies, but the problem is what will the culture of a larger Council be? If we were inflicting the infighting of WCC onto the region, well Upper Hutt and Porirua don’t deserve that.

A better option might be deciding which functions should be provided at a regional level, and either transferring them to the Regional Council or setting up CCOs at arms length from the current Councils.

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