A Great Place to Live The Council’s 2002 public opinion survey shows that people continue to rate the city highly as a place to live, work and spend their spare time. About 93 per cent classed themselves as satisfied or very satisfied with Christchurch.

Central City revitalisation Work continues on this Mayoral initiative, with a big increase in off-street parking following the start of first-hour free parking, the near completion of two retail sites integrated with Council car parking and completion of heritage precinct work on High Street. As well, the Council bought the Turners and Growers site to develop as a park and, in concert with the private sector, as a residential/mixed-use block.

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Leisure QEII Park’s redevelopment has seen the opening of the new 50m pool, laying a quality Mondo surface on the stadium track and the opening in August of the Atlantis-themed leisure pool. Visitor numbers continue to grow at QEII and at the Centennial and Pioneer leisure centres.

English Park’s redevelopment is complete. It now has community facilites, a cycleway and pedestrian link and a new 500-seat grandstand with lounge and offices that will be leased to Mainland Soccer (formerly Soccer Canterbury).

Christchurch hosted eight international sporting events, including the FINA World Masters Swimming Championships which drew around 1900 participants.

TV2 Kidsfest drew more than 60,000 spectators and participants and SummerTimes continues to be a favourite. The ASB Bank Starry Nights, in its second year, attracted over 30,000 people while the Rick Armstrong Motors Classical Sparks got a crowd of 100,000 – about a third of the city’s population.

Four new recreation programmes for older people were developed (St Albans Bus trips, Hei Hei Gentle Exercise, Ascot Sit ‘n Be Fit and Ascot Leisure Club.) The KiwiAble programme, for people with disabilities, saw a large increase in numbers for its new Movement and Dance and Drama courses.

The Council’s Arts policy and strategy was completed. Among the new art activities were Gridlocked, using empty city retail space for local artists’ exhibitions, and Art Beat, inviting the public into artists’ studios.

Aranui Community Renewal This Council-Housing NZ partnership with the Aranui community has identified issues facing Aranui and set out a programme.

HNZ has begun building new units and Wainoni Park playground improvements are under way. Three groups are now working on Health, Employment and Training and on Facilities for family, youth and children.

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Heritage Buildings Our City O-Tautahi has a new role, as a space to inform and educate citizens and visitors about the City’s environment and past, present and future developments.

Significant heritage projects are continuing, including the restoration of Warners Hotel, the Star and Lyttelton Times and the strengthening of Christchurch Cathedral and the Stone Towers of the Canterbury Provincial Government buildings. Progress has also been made on restoring the Old Saddlery building which, with the Bush Inn, is the last remaining early commercial building at the western end of Riccarton Road.

Several Conservation Covenants to protect heritage buildings have been registered, including Hatherley in Gleneagles Terrace, Victoria Chambers, the commercial building at 759 Colombo St and the Church of St Mary, Heathcote.

The Council’s new Policy for non-listed heritage covenants recognises important places of community interest. The first to be considered and approved by the Council was for the house, studio and garden of painter William Sutton.

Streets Planning continues to improve several major roads in and around the City, including further work on northern access, planning for the new southern motorway and to four-lane Russley and Carmen roads.Work began on the final stage of the Woolston-Burwood Expressway. This will complete a quality eastern ring road and should help remove heavy vehicles from residential streets in the east.

More than 17km of kerb and channel has been renewed, and more than 19km created, while more than 100km of footpath were renewed and 19km created. Consents to upgrade Fendalton Rd were finalised and the LTSA approved a Council scheme to further roll out its 40km/h school speed zones.

This Christchurch initiative is being taken up by other cities in New Zealand.

Housing Tenants were interviewed as part of a programme to further improve services. The results suggest the huge majority of tenants are happy with their homes.

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Libraries A centralised phone, fax and email service has been set up to deal with accounts and other information questions. Plans are under way to extend the service to include a real-time internetbased Q+A service. The Library won an NZ Post Management Excellence Award for the project.

Internet page views have increased by 42% and external access to the Library's catalogue has increased 28%.

The Central City Library building was 20 years old in 2002. Its refurbishment has been completed, with a business and computing area, Nga Pounamu Maori area, seminar and training room and better research facilities being features of the new facility.

The Council approved a concept design for the new South Christchurch Library, Service Centre and Community Learning Centre. Construction is under way and the centre is due to open in mid-2003.

After an approach from Riccarton High School, the Council plans to build a joint school/community library on the school’s Main South Road boundary. It will be the first of its kind in urban NZ and should be completed in December 2005.

Art Gallery Conservation and replication of historical collection frames continues. Among the purchases are etchings by A J Rae and Eleanor Hughes. Among more than 200 works given, there are 13 significant works from the R Frank White estate, including an oil by Henri Fantin-Latour.

Work has begun to catalogue the collection of over 10,000 items for the new Christchurch Art Gallery Reference Library and Archives.

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery's doors closed on 16 June 2002, ending the building’s 70-year role as home of the city’s art collection. Preparation has begun for 30 exhibitions for 2003-05, including an international, two national, three regional, and three collection-based exhibitions for the new Gallery's opening in 2003.The new gallery is on target and within the $39.89 million budget.Work is also under way on the sculpture garden and placement of major art works on the outside of the building and its grounds.

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Economic Development/Employment Through the Council’s economic arm, Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC), more than 2400 businesses received advice and help — referrals, business education training and mentoring — with more than 2700 signed on to the BIZ training programme. A review of the BIZ Hi Tech Launch Pad programme shows 74% of attending firms increased turnover, more than half took on more staff and 44% successfully developed exports.

The Canterbury Innovation Incubator (Cii) got six high tech tenants and another $200,000 of Industry NZ support. The CDC hosted 14 overseas business and investor delegations and more than 50 individuals and companies were given information about business and investment opportunities.

Ministry of Education funding was renewed to aid the transition from school to work. The CDC helped Burnside High School set up the Christchurch Computer College. It continues to support six schools’ work on the posteducation needs of Maori and Pacific Island students. The new Moving On initiative is tracking the future intentions of more than 1200 school leavers. Support and help is being given where needed.

Actionworks, CDC’s youth employment partnership with the Ministry of Social Development, continues to manage more than 2000 young job seekers. The aim is to make sure all 18 and 19-year-olds are either working, learning or training.

The Adult Community Employment Scheme (ACE) placed over 200 unemployed people in subsidised work placements. Surveys show more than 60% of these people moved into full time work in the last year.

An agreement was signed between CDC and Te Runanga O Ngai Tahu to work together on Maori economic development and employment.

City Plan In the last year the Environment Court released seven decisions about appeals (references) on the Proposed City Plan. Of 400 references lodged, more than half have been resolved, mostly by negotiation.

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Wastewater Treatment A $5.6m contract was let for a second pair of four clarifiers for the plant upgrade. The Environment Court granted the Council a five-year permission to discharge its treated effluent to the Estuary, with one condition being that UV sterilisation is installed within two years. The Consent was appealed as a holding position while the Council reexamined its options.

A HotRot composter was bought to process sewage screenings instead of sending them to the landfill.

Solid Waste Around 1.5ha of land beside the Parkhouse Refuse Station was bought for $1.13m to provide potential rail access and additional space for future waste minimisation activities. Two objections were filed on the new consent to continue operating the Burwood Landfill.

Parks and Waterways Much work is under way to strengthen the Garden City image. Under a landscape plan for the Park Terrace riverbanks, the large willow landscape is to be sustained, with native grass plantings on the Hagley Park side of the riverbank. The Heathcote Valley Park initiative is developing 93ha of public land. Developments proposed for the park include the Tamaki Maori Cultural experience; sports fields; walking, cycle and horse tracks; and waterways and wetlands habitat restoration.

A Port Hills survey identified recreation patterns and preferences. Focus groups were held, and a draft recreation strategy is being formulated to fit within the wider picture for Port Hills planning.

The council has work under way on the following strategies: Open Space Strategy through Area Plans, Awaroa (Godley Head) Development/Management Plan, Natural Environment Strategy, Biodiversity Strategy, Area and Community Plans and the City Wide Planting Strategy.

An Estuary Trust was set up in June 2002 with community and Council representatives to look at a vision for the estuary and its margins, including integrated management, healthy ecosystems, a safe playground, balanced use, increase community input into management and greater cooperation between community and agencies.

Systems are being checked to make sure that the usual high standard of park maintenance is met, regardless of weather conditions.

Partnerships with the Ministry of Education led to groups of school children working with Council rangers and staff educators on environmental education programmes centred on the beaches, parks and waste facilities. At Travis Wetlands, an award-winning bird-hide was developed. Other improvements are the education centre, information centre, tracks and boardwalks that serve the

growing numbers of visitors to the wetlands.

Botanic Gardens The Band Rotunda has been restored and strengthened. The final stage of the landscape work on the stream in the Heritage Rose Garden was completed and planted and a start was made on the new kiosk footbridge.

Playgrounds The way we design and build play areas in parks was changed. They are now integrated into a site’s contours to make the most of unique features. Wainoni Park, Hollis Reserve and Fairway Reserve are examples. The Council is also trying ideas such as the climbing rock at Bishopdale Park and the replica fossils in the Alwyn Park sandpit.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Reporting The Annual Plan format was changed to include TBL measures.

TBL attempts to take into account three core areas of an organisation’s performance — economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice — not merely the meeting of financial targets.

Through TBL the Council conveys its values or principles and measures its performance in matching them.

Council Financial Turnover for the year was about $431m. Operating spending at $256m meant an operating surplus of about $175m. Of this $26m was from increased special dividends from Christchurch City Holdings Ltd (CCHL) and the rest from CCHL bringing forward an $18m dividend payment because it was more tax efficient to do so. Over all, net expenditure was $246m, about $2.4m below budget (1.4%).

The Council’s financial position continues to be very strong, with a growth in equity of $121m.

Fixed assets grewby $134m after providing for depreciation of $49m. A reduction in the value of investments follows the sale of the Council shareholdings in City Care and Selwyn Plantation Board and the reduction in the value of CCHL following the capital repatriation. The only borrowings during the year were for equity investments or to finance loans to Jade Stadium Ltd.

Of the $175m repatriated during the year from the sale of Orion’s North Island gas networks, $100m is being used for debt reduction and $75m invested in a protected long-term fund to be known as the Capital Endowment Fund. This has been ring-fenced from the Council’s other funds in order to protect its capital. It will provide an ongoing income stream to be used for economic development as well as civic and community projects.

Group The Group accounts also show a strong performance when adjusted for the Orion gas sale gain. The strength of its subsidiaries continues to contribute to the Council’s over all strong financial position.