Not everyone is prepared to ‘nail their colours to the mast’ when it comes to their preferred candidates in local body campaigns. Some don’t wish, by endorsing one person, to offend other candidates with whom they have relationships. Some don’t…
Tom Belford11 September 2016
I suppose we should be gratified that so many people seem at last to be climbing aboard the Tukituki clean-up cause. The list even includes Hastings Council candidates and HDC refugees like Cynthia Bowers, whose husband, Ewan McGregor, during his terms…
Tom Belford02 September 2016
Today the Appeals Court upheld the Forest & Bird appeal challenging DoC’s decision to downgrade, and swap to the Regional Council’s holding company (HBRIC), conservation land necessary for the CHB dam . Without that land, there’s no reservoir for the…
BayBuzz31 August 2016
Monday the Regional Council staff put out a press release titled ‘Tukituki in the clear’, indicating that the most recent analysis of groundwater from HBRC-monitored bores around the contaminated Havelock North aquifer (the Te Mata aquifer) sampled last week by HBRC…
Tom Belford23 August 2016
I’m proud to be nominated as a candidate for the HB Regional Council by two of my long-time citizen heroes and friends – Chris Ryan, with whom I co-led the petition campaign that gathered over 10,000 names to reject the…
Tom Belford10 August 2016
Last Friday was a jumbled day at the Regional Council, juxtaposing two public-excluded briefings on the dam with two public sanitised versions of those presentations, followed by a confusing procedural vote. As I wrote beforehand in this Talking Point published…
Tom Belford10 July 2016
Last Thursday, five members of the Regional Council shelved — at least for now — the proposal for ratepayers to purchase $36.9 million of water from the proposed Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme (RWSS). The lack of any evidence-based case whatsoever…
BayBuzz12 June 2016
As reported by BayBuzz informer … Chairman Fenton Wilson, at HBRIC plotting session: “I’m not saying you shouldn’t punch out Councillor Belford if the opportunity arises.”
Tom Belford19 May 2016
Yesterday HBRIC announced that it almost had reached the HBRC-stipulated goal of ‘signed and sealed’ water user contracts committing CHB farmers to buying 45 million cubic metres of dam water per year over the next 35 years. The signed contracts…
Tom Belford28 April 2016
