Thursday, July 23, 2020
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
‘Stop the politics, play economics’ By Sue Newman
start projects that were currently on their drawing boards, he said. “They know what those projects are, so they need to come out and tell us.” A letter has been sent from South Island mayors asking the government to announce the rest of the projects, rather than continue with the staged announcements planned. “We’ve been told if you get a notification that a minister is coming to town then you know your number is up. We haven’t heard anything,” he said. Timaru has been told to expect a ministerial delegation next month, Brown said and that raised a bit of unease over the outcome of the district’s four projects that are left in the mix.
sue.n@theguardian.co.nz
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Ashburton mayor Neil Brown says he’s fed up with the waiting game communities around New Zealand are being forced to play as further announcements of winners in the Government’s shovel-ready projects fund are delayed. The Ashburton District had four projects make the cut, but whether or not they’ll receive a share of the funding pool is still unknown, Brown said. “It’s time they stopped playing politics and started playing economics,” he said. Twelve projects were announced last month in the first round with $240 million of the $3 billion funding pool allocated. Just one of those projects was in Canterbury, with the majority in the upper North Island and that is simply continuing a trend where Northland, in par-
Mayor Neil Brown ticular, appeared to be gaining a large share of the pot, Brown said. South Island councils were being forced to play a waiting game to see whether they would be able to kick-
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