Councillors approved the updated 2024-25 statements of intent for Dunedin City Holdings Ltd (DCHL) companies, during a Dunedin City Council meeting last week.
DCHL is an organisation that oversees the finances and sustainability of eight companies it owns on behalf of the city council — including Aurora Energy, City Forests, Delta Utility Services, Dunedin Railways, Dunedin Venues, Dunedin City Treasury and Dunedin Stadium Property along with a 50% shareholding in Dunedin International Airport Ltd.
DCHL chairman Tim Loan, who assumed the role in March, thanked councillors for their engagement and feedback, which had been “really encouraging”.
They were looking to make improvements to the process and would like to get to a position where they could provide more accurate forecasting much earlier in the timeline.
Cr Lee Vandervis said he had heard councillors express their pleasure at Mr Loan’s personal responsiveness, and many of the changes that had been made were “very welcome”.
In response to requests from the council, it was now stated City Forests would participate in the country’s emissions trading scheme and may make special distributions from carbon credits.
Dunedin Airport would work to develop options for regional routes in the lower South Island using smaller aircraft while Dunedin Railways would signal a move out of a “hibernation” phase, to a “transition” phase, with regard to its Taieri Gorge rail services, and revised performance measures were now stated.
Cr Vandervis congratulated Mr Loan for stepping into the role and for making his presence felt very quickly in terms of “much improved” information, feedback and clarity of reports to councillors.
Cr Sophie Barker said the process was now much better than it had been in the past.
Having “good open conversations” with DCHL had helped the two entities to better understand each other and she was happy with the direction in which they were headed.
“It’s not an us and them, it’s a we”, she said.
Also at the meeting, Cr Christine Garey questioned whether Mr Loan was confident council-owned companies were aspiring to meet their net-zero 2030 carbon target, including addressing “low-hanging fruit” such as plastic wrapping.
Meanwhile, Cr Carmen Houlahan questioned how realistic the goal of no single-use plastic cups at council-owned venues by 2025 would be.
The statement of intent for Dunedin Railways also listed a target of opening the track to Pukerangi by October this year and increasing the number of passengers from tour operators to 20% of all public passengers.
tim.scott@odt.co.nz
