Marlborough council agrees to seek more community input ahead of possible amalgamation

Marlborough residents are focused on the financial impacts and ensuring fair representation ahead of a potential merger with their southern neighbours in Kaikōura.

Kaikōura District Council has announced its preferred option is to join forces with Marlborough, instead of amalgamating with two North Canterbury councils, Hurunui and Waimakariri, as part of the government's Head Start pathway.

On Thursday, Marlborough District Council agreed to seek more feedback from the community on the amalgamation proposal.

At a workshop, councillors noted the need for broad community engagement and clear messaging about the voluntary nature of the process. Further feedback would be sought from the community from next week.

The council had already surveyed the community and received 217 responses, most of which were positive or neutral.

Respondents were focused on the financial impacts, debt, infrastructure liabilities, rates, identity and local representation.

While there was support for exploring a merger with Kaikōura - particularly for tourism, regional alignment and future growth - that support was often conditional on clear financial benefits, strong local representation, protection of Marlborough's identity and robust evidence that ratepayers would not face increased costs or liabilities, the council said.

Marlborough District Council's strategic delivery manager Phillip Eyles said there was already co-operation between the two districts, and both faced similar issues in terms of fire security, river catchments and coastal management.

"I keep saying to people that this is the simplest potential [Head Start] proposal in New Zealand at the moment."

He said the Kaikōura district was home to around 4300 residents, it had about 1500 kilometres of road, half of it unsealed, it had established a water organisation with Hurunui this year and was "in pretty good shape financially".

Eyles said the council needed to do "at lot more due diligence" and staff would be working "at pace" to get information back to elected members before they had to make a decision.

He said there were economic development and diversification opportunities in amalgamation.

"Kaikōura has got quite an impressive tourism brand, but it is a huge part of their economy. It's not quite half, but it is a big chunk and we've got our own tourism offerings that actually complement those things as well.

"There's a lot of sharing around the agricultural development, there's some of the grapes grown down there and there is probably opportunities in the agriculture and marine research areas as well."

Eyles said the council needed to get a better idea of Kaikōura's Civil Defence capability and the recent costs of floods, storms and earthquakes.

"There's a bit of work to do around just actually analysing and understanding what the real risks are there and how they can be managed and also just building some of that community resilience, because as you saw in the earthquake, places get cut off.

Councillor Cyril Dawson said it was important the community knew the council, as a unitary authority was not required to amalgamate, unless directed to by the government.

The council agreed to make it clear within the survey that the process was voluntary.

Councillor Deborah Dalliessi asked when the council would be seeing a balance sheet and looking at the assets and board commitments.

Eyles said that information would be brought to council as part of the outline proposal, which has to be submitted to government by August 9.

Councils are then required to submit a detailed proposal required by March 2027.