Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

We will soon be asked to offer submissions to the WBOPDC's Long Term Plan. I have had a wonderful idea already.

It is totally simplistic, but then common sense always seems simple. We need more engineers and fewer managers. Engineers have a different approach to problem solving. When something is not working, an engineer will analyse the situation, identify the problem and devise a strategy to allow the operation to resume at a minimum cost. Usually a service note will record the problem and its solution for future reference. Council managers do none of the above.
Mr Clarkson is offering to open up a new suburb of affordable (cheap) houses for Tauranga and Western Bay, but he can only do so if the councils waive many of their regulations and fees. Even then, he will only be building a new Otara. Our new couples trying for their first house at the age of 34 won't go near the rubbish. Otara worked because of the heavy involvement of Housing Corporation, but this project in its suggested form will only be a repeat of the Omokoroa damp squib.

To survive, council needs more money from these developers not less. The suggested increase in consents and fees of about 17 per cent seems logical for council managers, but it would be very much like boring a hole in the bottom of a boat that is sinking to let the water out.

Are there any engineers out there? We probably still have them on councils, but their voice in urban planning has long gone. Planning is not the main problem now, there's no cash left.

Whatever new strategy SmartGrowth and the councils are going to devise, I wish them luck. I am pleased that, for future planning, Smart Growth has designed three stages, the preparation of a Report Card to analyse where planning has gone wrong, an Issues Discussion Paper, a stocktake of the current situation – and only then will they move on to future project planning.

This whole approach sounds totally logical, but if all of these discussions are going to take place in confidential workshops and the findings never see the light of day, nothing will be learned and mistakes will be repeated.

The council's new draft Long Term Plan should reveal whether or not council has admitted its failures and learned anything from its $200m over-spend. This will be a chance for us to tell them what we think of them and their plans and I am sure they will be listening.