Cambridge residents have taken a huge interest in local body politics in recent weeks – and that was evident when the town’s community board meeting played out to a full house. Viv Posselt reports.
Shocked and puzzled participants at the Cambridge Connections drop in meeting
Cambridge Community Board chair Jo Davies-Colley had her hands full at last week’s monthly meeting, with an unusually large turnout for the public forum leaving her scrambling to accommodate them.
In the end, it was ‘standing room only’, with just the early birds finding seating and the rest standing outside the meeting room or watching a live-stream in an adjacent room.
Jo Davies-Colley
Davies-Colley was overheard saying she had never seen it like it before.
Unsurprisingly, the main attraction was Waipā District Council’s Cambridge Connections project and the testy issue around the potential siting of a third bridge.
All speakers talking to that issue roundly criticised the council’s handling of it and spoke to the subsequent erosion of trust. Most expressed concerns that the same level of ‘bungling’ would characterise whatever came next.
Responding to one speaker, Waipā District councillor and Cambridge Community Board member Mike Montgomerie said he accepted criticism of the council and said that was why the location of the bridge had been taken off the table for now.
Mike Montgomerie
Clarifying what is still on the table, he said: “The business case that is Cambridge Connections is called the programme business case and is much more than just the bridge. It is about how Cambridge is going to work in the medium to long term from a transport point of view. One of the first things you have to establish with Waka Kotahi before you start getting co-funding is that you have to come up with a business case… essentially an evidence-based statement of the problem and a range of solutions. What is still on the table is that programme business case minus the location of the bridge.”
He said there was more involved in the business case than was immediately apparent because the bridge location became ‘the topic’.
“In there is a diverse range of options on how we are going to deal with roads in Cambridge, from the status quo through to building more roads,” he added. “That business case where we identify the problems and choose the strategic direction is still a live business case. It is still a coherent piece of work. Submissions on that are open to May 24 and we really encourage everyone to still be engaged with that step.”
Several speakers alluded to important findings brought to the council and board’s attention by resident Carey Church, who also addressed the meeting.
Carey Church
She questioned details around the timing of data-collection used in the modelling for Cambridge Connection’s location of the bridge, saying it was done during the Covid-19 red light traffic settings – a time when people changed their behaviour, worked from home and there was a cap on public gatherings.
“Between February 24 and March 30, 2022, the Cambridge Connections project was collecting the Bluetooth origin and destination data to provide evidence for Cambridge’s future transport plan and the location of the third bridge,” she said.
“Waka Kotahi has reported that 31 percent of us were working from home during the red traffic light setting during these dates … this adds uncertainty about the reliability and safety of the Bluetooth data, which appears to be fundamental to the options presented in the project.”
On advising the council chief executive, transport manage and others on April 9, Church said she was told they were not aware of this issue.
She called on the council and transport team and consultants to start the modelling again, “starting with getting new Bluetooth data that will give us confidence that the information is accurate and representative of how our community travels”.
She also called on council to agree to work with a Residents’ Advisory Group in relation to the project.
