The KCDC has finished widening the footpath along Te Moana Road between Park Avenue and the Expressway, with just the grass left to resow. This widened path now provides enough room for pedestrians and cyclists to share the space together.

The recently formed group, Friends of the Waikanae Town Centre, says the results of a comprehensive survey the group has conducted confirms its belief that KCDC and NZTA have ignored the Waikanae community’s sentiment in the plans announced for the Main Road as part of the State Highway 1 revocation process.

The survey, which started on 24 April and ran for 17 days, came about after the group noted a straw poll conducted on the Kapiti Coast Facebook page showed about 90% were opposed to the changes. Friends of the Waikanae Town Centre decided that a more comprehensive survey was needed and with financial support from the Waikanae Community Board it was quickly up and running.

The survey was conducted in both on-line form using Survey Monkey and in paper form with copies of the same questions distributed via local shops, supermarkets and other community venues. 1,152 people had their say with 785 responses from Survey Monkey and 367 paper responses.

The group is confident that the results are reliable as Survey Monkey responses show only a very small number of multiple responses per IP address, and group members have scrutinised the written responses for any obvious duplication of handwriting styles; there were none.

“The 1152 responses is a substantial number by national survey standards and the 952 from Waikanae residents is nearly 10% of the total population, says David Sherar, spokesman for the group.

“The results are clear and unequivocal: the changes planned by KCDC and NZTA are not wanted.”

The Survey results show
 Over 46% of Waikanae residents didn’t know about the plans promoted by KCDC and NZTA, calling into question KCDC’s community engagement practices.
 81% of Waikanae respondents do not see the need for any change to Waikanae Main Road as part of the revocation of SH1.
 Waikanae residents see no need for additional traffic control at Ngaio Street, with 62.3% voting to leave the intersection as it is.
 Asked about pedestrian crossing at Ngaio Street, the vote was split with Puffin Crossing and Zebra Crossing combined taking 55% of the vote.
 An overwhelming 81% of people do not want to see the rock wall and trees demolished for the planned changes.
 Over 80% of respondents do not want the speed limit reduced to 30kph through Waikanae town centre.
 More than 63% of Waikanae residents see no need for a dedicated cycle lane through Waikanae town centre.
 The only issue on which there is a close vote is parallel versus angle parking, which is a 50-50 split.

Mahara Place businesses expressed their desire for angle parking and are supported by both the Waikanae Community Board and Waikanae Ward Councillor, Michael Scott. Their votes were not included in the Friends of Waikanae Town Centre survey but would have swayed the results towards angle parking, contrary to the Council vote on proposed parking. Friends of Waikanae Town Centre believes the 50% acceptance of parallel parking has come about because 80% of the community just wants the road left as it is.

David Sherar says, “We call on both the Council and NZTA to heed the survey results and go back to the community of Waikanae before implementing changes that are unwanted by Waikanae residents/ratepayers.”

Friends of the Waikanae Town Centre thanks everyone who took part in the survey and the many local businesses who provided a place where members of the community could access it. The way the community has come together on this issue is testament to Waikanae residents’ strong interest in their town.

At least we think that is what it is.  By Ruth Cooper of Waikanae.

A message on the DW Facebook page is below:

No, it’s not the badly needed independent efficiency auditor, alas.

“KCDC has just appointed Jenny Carter to a newly formed Waste Advisor role, and her main responsibility will be to provide free, in-home waste minimisation and rubbish disposal advice and support to Kāpiti residents.

“Jenny has also been invited by the industry body, WasteMINZ, to be one of two representatives for New Zealand Councils on a cross sector working group around the issues with compostable/recyclable bags, which is a reflection of Jenny’s expertise in this area. Other representative on this group are from the packaging industries, supermarkets and the composting industry — cross your fingers the packaging people listen!

“There will also be a trial ‘pay as you go” rubbish collection service by Low Cost Bins

“After all the discussion about why customers who only produce tiny amounts of rubbish per week should have to pay for a weekly service, Low Cost Bins are trialling a ‘pay as you go’ rubbish collection service with 100 customers, over three months starting 1 July 2018. This trial won’t affect residents recycling collections, which will continue as normal. Low Cost Bins will then carry out analysis of the trial collection period and if the trial shows that it’s a viable option, they’ll look at the option of launching a pay per empty model early in 2019.”

“(Waste Management do offer a ‘pay as you go’ rubbish collection service, which is currently only for the 240L rubbish bins, but say it could be expanded to other bin sizes. Recycling collections for the ‘pay as you go’ system continue as normal with them too.”

Illegal dumping

“One thing we were all worried about when the yellow bags were discontinued was illegal dumping – however KCDC’s operations and waste minimisation teams say that the amount of general litter and illegally dumped rubbish is on par with previous years, and hasn’t dramatically increased since the changes came into effect.

“There will always be trouble spots (we saw three bags supermarket bags of domestic rubbish at the entrance to the Nikau Walk yesterday (not even inside the empty rubbish bin….), so we’ll continue to let KCDC know when we find these.”

In the usual place, 7 pm.  If you find sitting through these tedious, the “Matters under Action” pdf here gives you a pretty good summary on what council people and contractors are doing around Waikanae.

Not mentioned on the agenda is a presentation of the Main Road survey results that were conducted over April-May.  We have had these for a while, but felt it would be diplomatically appropriate to hold off until the WCB meeting.  We will publish them the next morning, Wednesday 20th.

This one has featured in past Lions garden trails.

A private driveway.