Tauranga City Council staff skewed numbers to support Willow Street as the site of the city's bus centre, despite most people wanting it in Durham Street, says Councillor Murray Guy.
A council staff report states 467 people provided feedback with 53.5 per cent preferring Willow Street, and 40.9 per cent preferring Durham Street.
Murray says the real figure is; 911 people provided feedback, with 238, or 26 per cent preferring Willow Street, and 645 people or 70 per cent believing Durham Street is a better site.
Murray says 28 people wanted a third option, and believes this number would have been greater if people had known it was an option.



In his analysis of all the feedback, Murray finds that council staff rejected 408 signatures, including names and addresses, on a petition that opposed Willow Street.
Instead, it included in the 467 supporting Willow Street, 106 anonymous text responses, 100 anonymous website votes, and 150 anonymous brochure responses, largely it appears, from library and bus users.
Staff determined petitioners do not qualify as ‘individual feedback'. In a council meeting CEO Stephen Town says this is because of staff using RMA guidelines which disqualify petitions.
'A Resource Management Act process, that absolutely gobsmacks me,” says Murray.
'The transportation feedback was a community consultation process under the Local Government Act 2002 to determine by numbers the level of support for specific options put to them by their council – a numbers critical focus.
'This is a significantly flawed approach as the RMA clearly is not a numbers exercise, but rather, decisions made are evidence based,” says Murray.
'This error of judgement in itself, justifies rescinding the resolution passed supporting the Willow Street option.”
There are other areas of the staff report Murray says leave much to be desired, like the reliability of costings, the absence of environmental impacts and the sustainable assertions for growth.
Murray says it's serious enough to stop the funding application to the NZ Transport Agency.
'The information provided to elected members is grossly inaccurate and the application should not proceed,” says Murray.
Murray says the $400,000 NZ Transport Agency funding is being sought on the basis of false information, and it should be withdrawn immediately.
Stephen Town says councillors agreed to revisit the issue following discussion after a meeting this week, but they will wait until after they know if the funding application is successful.
'At the end of the day councillors and the mayor vote to make decisions on behalf of the community and one of the things they take account of is the feedback they get from the community,” says Stephen.
'Murray's getting a little bit lost in the detail. At the end of the day the elected members need to take account of the submissions process as they see fit.”
The bus station is one of 800 projects in the 10 year plan. Councillors get their information from the council's own feedback process and also from feedback directed to them from the community, says Stephen.
'They are also getting lobbied by people who have a very strong view one way or another.”