18 January 2012

COUNCIL DECLINES GROW MID CANTERBURY EQ FUNDING REQUEST 

Ashburton District Council has decided not to provide funding to Grow Mid Canterbury to station a consultant in Christchurch to broker work for district firms.

Councillors listened to a presentation from Grow Mid Canterbury chief executive, Rob Brawley, who was seeking a ratepayer contribution of $130,000 to help fund the appointment of a consultant to find contracts for local firms in the Christchurch rebuild.

There were a variety of views expressed by councillors to the request which boiled down to two key reasons not to provide funding.   Firstly, local firms wanting work in Christchurch were better placed to pursue opportunities themselves, and Council are aware of this, including local builders being accredited by Fletchers to undertake local repair work.

Secondly, Council had previously worked with Grow Mid Canterbury and business leaders in response to immediate housing needs.  This was subsequently not required by the relevant response decision makers.

 Please click on the link below to read more... 

Media Release - GMC Earthquake Proposal 18 January 2012

18 January 2012

ASHBURTON CHILD BADLY MAULED BY FAMILY DOG

A three-year old boy has suffered what are believed to be serious injuries after being attacked by a family dog in Ashburton. Family members interrupted the attack after hearing the dog making an unusual noise and immediately called emergency services. The boy was taken by ambulance to Ashburton Hospital and then flown by air ambulance to Christchurch Hospital.

The family that own the dog have requested it be put down immediately. The dog was humanely destroyed this afternoon at a local Vet Surgery.

Our community may be misled by the front-page article in the Guardian 18 January with respect to free all day parking.  Ashburton District Council has not made any final decisions regarding changes to parking in the Ashburton town centre and in particular ending the free parking in the West Street car park.

Chairman of the Town Centre Sub-Committee, Cr Nelson, says one project has been approved by Council;  the changing of existing parking meters in East Street to new pay-and-display machines.  This is to free up the existing parking meters for use as replacements and spare parts for the rest of the town centre metered areas as the current machines are obsolete and parts are not available.

There are limited viable options available to increase short-term parking availability in the town centre.  The option that looks best at this stage is introducing a one-way system of Burnett and Tancred Streets.  This would enable angle parking on one side of each street, while retaining the parallel parking on the other, retaining ease of movement for traffic.

 10 January 2012

LONG TERM PLAN BUDGET WORKSHOP