Mayors from Wellington and Ashburton say they feel "left in limbo" and "disappointed" by the Government's decision to pause amalgamation processes despite councils having put time and money into drafting proposals.
Yesterday Local Government Minister Simon Watts and RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said Cabinet would not consider the head start proposals until early 2027, despite councils spending an estimated $9 million developing plans.
Critics - including Labour - said the process has wasted ratepayer money and council resources, while the ministers insisted reforms were still on track for the 2028 local elections.
Watts said more work was required on the 18 proposals submitted in August.
"They were high quality, but a number of them do have gaps. It's prudent for us to work through those gaps and close those gaps so that Cabinet can make a decision in regards to progressing those. We're aiming to do that after the election," he explained.
Speaking to Breakfast this morning, Wellington mayor Andrew Little said they had been "left in limbo" by the decision.
"The fact that we were given this really pressured deadline to come up with a proposal... We put a lot of effort into it, got external help with it as well.
"We were told that it didn't have to be perfect. This was just about getting an understanding of 'could something be done?' And then we would be given six months to pull the detail together," he explained.
"From yesterday's announcement, it looked like the goalposts had changed, and actually the ministers were expecting something more. But we now are left in limbo, and that's the really disappointing thing," he said.
Little said within the tight deadline he felt they weren't able to conduct adequate community consultation.
"In local government, we expect to be able to go out to the people we represent - and a lot of people had a lot of ideas about it - but we couldn't do any sort of comprehensive or structured consultation.
"We thought when the minister said they had this tight deadline that they were serious about progressing things and that they had the mandate and the authority to make the decisions this late in the electoral cycle, so it's just disappointing to see that that wasn't the case."
Ashburton mayor Liz McMillan said it had been an "interesting process".
"I know our South Canterbury neighbours are disappointed. They'd put a proposal forward which included us, but we're probably happy to wait."
She said she didn't feel the need to "rush ahead" with submitting a Head Start proposal.
"I always thought that the Head Start proposal was for councils that were ready, and it was voluntary. So I didn't think that we needed to rush ahead. It was a rushed process. We didn't get a lot of time to get everything right, and we worked so hard to just get all the information and do all the consultation and everything, so it took up a lot of precious time for our council."
She said many were on board, saying "we know we need change", but she was not confident in the way it had been delivered thus far.
"Not sure if I'm confident, but I know that we will work with the neighbouring councils. We'll work with our Canterbury region. I mean, we've got a very complex region with 10 councils, and so we kind of thought that we wouldn't get over the line anyway with Head Start.
"But yeah, it's been such an interesting process. We can only just look forward," she said.
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