There has been no easing off of the workload for both Council and elected Councillors in this last week before the Local Elections.

But there has been a bit of banter, especially from the four Councillors who are retiring from Local Government, as they tend to final duties. Cr Stuart Wilson, who leaves after 12 years, came to a recent activity briefing dressed in the same tweed jacket and shirt he wore to his first Council meeting in 2010 – and while he might have reminisced for a minute, the wheels of Council did not stop turning.

The agenda for yesterday’s final meeting was also a typical workload, from progressing the Ashburton Airport Development Plan, to reviewing the Community Honours Awards Policy and setting community grants. While that work was in the public arena, a mountain of reading and understanding of issues was done out of the public eye, as is often the case with council business.

So thank you to not only those Councillors who are retiring, but to all Councillors for their work this term. It has certainly been a memorable one as we negotiated a pandemic and learned to govern by Zoom, while also managing to keep the new civic library and administration building on track, and deal with historic flooding.

Early this Saturday afternoon, we will likely know who will sitting around the Council table for the next three years, and who will be on the Methven Community Board.

The new councillors will be sworn in at a special council meeting on 27 October, and will have already undergone some training with Local Government New Zealand. It will be a learning journey for new councillors as they are also brought up to speed by staff on Council projects and day-to-day operations.

The campaign encouraging residents to vote in the current Local Elections is in its final days and you will have seen advertising in newspapers and on social media and radio urging people to have their say, and I hope you do.

It is not too late, though the deadline for votes to be received is noon on Saturday, so it is too late to vote by post. You can still vote by filling out your voting papers and taking them to Council’s main offices in Ashburton, or the Ashburton Public Library, or to the Mt Hutt Memorial Hall.

Voting bins will be collected just after noon on Saturday 8 October and the contents couriered to Electionz.com in Christchurch for counting. In the event of closely-contested seats, these votes may make a difference.

By the close of voting, we are expecting that at least half of the eligible 23,124 voters in the Ashburton district will have had their say.

Residents can expect to see the result on our website within a few hours of the polls closing, however the official declaration won’t be made until 13 October, and the new Council will get down to business only after it is sworn in.