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Ashburton FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879
Phone 03 308 9936 or 0274 323 258
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
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Police phone ‘not in book’ By Sam Morton A retired Ashburton resident looked high and low for the number to contact Ashburton Police – but after leafing through two phone books, he still couldn’t find it. Over the long weekend, several cars were outside his property doing wheel spins, donuts and skids, and a group of youths, who he believes were intoxicated, were seen kicking fences and hitting mailboxes on Buckleys Terrace,
in Tinwald. Dave Hurring, who has only recently returned to Ashburton to retire, was disgusted he couldn’t find a number for the local station – and says the lack of exposure and difficulty to contact the police is dangerous. “People are reluctant to contact 111, because as it clearly states when you call, the line is for emergencies only,” he said. “It’s really quite daunting to know you can’t actually get hold of anyone locally, when you need to.” A police spokesperson told the
Guardian the number had been misplaced during the compilation of the phone book – put together by Telecom. In desperation and growing frustration, Mr Hurring rang Christchurch Police who said they too couldn’t get hold of any officers in Ashburton – instead offering to send a patrol car from Hornby. Mr Hurring told the officers to stay put, pointing out it would be “unpractical” to send police officers almost an hour down the road.
“By the time they got here, the boys would have gone to bed and got up again for another day – so to send them from Hornby is absolutely ridiculous,” Mr Hurring said. “The Ashburton Police Station number should be printed bold in our local phone book, it’s that simple – the fact it is not printed at all is a disgrace. “Apparently we have to contact Timaru Police Station, but how would anyone know to do that? There is no clear instruction at all,” he said.
Mr Hurring finally found the number printed in small font in the Christchurch Yellow Pages, found under Government Agencies, listed as a branch station. He rang the Ashburton station yesterday and his concerns were addressed by Senior Constable Mark Prendergast, who admittedly struggled to find the station’s number. “For a town and community this size, there is no excuse,” Mr Hurring said. “Something needs to change
and it needs to be fast.” Senior Sergeant Grant Russell, of Ashburton, said police were aware the number was not listed in the public phone book, pointing to an internal error at Telecom, which left the local station out of the book, for the second consecutive year. The phone number is accessible on the internet and the station is situated on Havelock Street. And in case you were wondering, the station’s number is, 3078400.
Forced to watch as sea swallows his land By Sue Newman Residents at the Hakatere Huts settlement are fed up with watching their land sliding into the sea. While the owners of the half dozen properties with perfect views out to sea are counting their front yards in lost land, the entire settlement is counting the cost of lost beach access after heavy rain in late April wiped out two metres of cliff and their sole set of beach steps. They say they’re fed up with asking for help, fed up with trying to get someone to do something about the dual erosion problem. As a last resort, last week they made their feelings known in a multi-signature submission to the Ashburton District Council’s annual plan. Paul Veitch says he’s resigned to eventually losing his home. “We’re the best off out of the six of us and I guess we’ll just enjoy it while we’ve still got it.” For huts residents, the erosion problem comes on two fronts – from river mouth as it swirls against the cliffs and from rainwater that drains from the upper huts settlement and runs down River Road over the cliffs and into the sea. “We want to know where the responsibility lies for this. It seems to be a real case of pass the buck, ECan and the council. I can’t see how they can just stand back and not do something,” Mr Veitch said. “It’s destroying the road. Over the past 10 to 12 years I’ve seen a couple of metres at a time disappear several times. River Road is well named, it becomes a river but no one seems to care.” Mr Veitch and his neighbours aren’t holding their breath on anyone tackling the sea erosion issue but they say this could be helped if rubble from demolition sites was off-loaded against the cliff. When it comes to channelling rainwater from the upper huts and from the road, however, they say something has to be done. The water that pours down River Road and over the cliff, floods the bach nearest the road and often washes around the second bach in the line too. When the hut holders’ spoke at the council’s annual plan hear-
Photo Tetsuro Mitomo 040613-TM-027
Enjoying the view while he can, Hakatere Huts resident Paul Veitch checks to see how much more of his remaining front lawn has been eroded away and fallen into the sea. ings last week, they received a low-key reception, but they are taking heart at a suggestion that a meeting should be held between the council, Environment Canterbury (ECan) and themselves to look at the road erosion issue. “This has to be progress, but we’ll see what happens from here.”
Good beach access was important, not just for hut owners, but also for the growing numbers of visitors who used the area for fishing and swimming, but they needed easy access, Mr Veitch said. With just six houses badly affected by sea erosion, they’re not holding their breath for the council to step in and come up
with a solution, but the road erosion was a different situation. That affected the whole community, he said. “Morally and surely legally they should do something. With all of those signatures on our submission perhaps they now realise the concern of all residents.” There were more than 100
houses in the settlement and that meant more than 100 disgruntled ratepayers, Mr Veitch said. Prior to last week’s hearing, the council, in a submission on ECan’s annual plan signalled that it had been listening to residents’ concerns. It urged ECan to meet with residents to discuss the issues
of coastal and riverbank erosion and to investigate possible remedial approaches. Getting the three parties together was a good first step, a council spokesperson said. While it would be difficult to find a solution to the coastal erosion problem, there could be options that could be looked at for the run-off problem, he said.
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Ministers misled on Novopay By Myles Hume and APNZ Mid Canterbury principals are disappointed with Government authorities who have been heavily criticised for giving Novopay the green light. A Ministerial Inquiry into the failed school payroll system has found key ministers were misled in an Education Ministry document they read prior to signing off on the decision to go live. It will result in an investigation into two ministry staff. The 113-page report, that makes 15 recommendations, found cabinet ministers were not given quality advice about the project from the ministry, back when it was introduced in August. The inquiry found the report misrepresented the situation in two key ways – it suggested that a ‘go live’ decision was supported by three members of the Ministry’s ICT Council, which was false, and it stated that certain criteria had been met, when it had not. Ashburton College principal Grant McMillan questioned how the ministry staff could get it so wrong, remembering similar issues which emerged when the previous payroll system was introduced in 1996. He was frustrated Novopay and its creator, Talent2, missed numerous opportunities to get it right. “All it would have taken was someone with a bit of moral integrity or a backbone to have the courage to say this is not ready to go,” he said. All of Mid Canterbury’s 23 schools have been affected by the shoddy payroll system, and many are still experiencing problems today. Finance Minister Bill English, Education Minister Hekia Parata and Associate Education Minister Craig Foss were issued a document by the Ministry on June 5 last year, inviting them to approve the ‘go live’ decision. The report found the project had not even met “a lower criterion” and the project’s readiness had been overestimated. “Reporting to ministers was inconsistent and at times unduly optimistic, and sometimes misrepresented the situation,” the report said. The Novopay payroll system is $23.9 million over budget, costing $56.8m. Hampstead School principal Peter Melrose wondered if the Government “would put up with schools acting just as irresponsibly”. “So how come Novopay can get away with it?” he said. The report stated there were weaknesses in project governance and leadership from the Ministry which led to a go live with many risks both the ministry and Talent2 were overconfident in managing. These risks resulted in service issues, and the ministry and Talent2 were unprepared and overwhelmed by their nature and scale. Minister Responsible for Novopay Steven Joyce said there was a lot of blame to go around. “There are substantial lessons to be learnt by the Ministry of Education in a number of areas.” The Acting Secretary for Education Peter Hughes said the Ministry did not have the capacity, skills, processes and governance for a project of this scale and complexity.
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