Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

It was good to read in Rogers Rabbits editorial last week that the Weekend Sun's approach to news is as accurate, fair, honest and credible, as they can manage. For this reason, I want to put right some comments made by Councillor Faulkner in his column last week about the Bay of Plenty Regional Council's Infrastructure Fund.

Of the $200 million Regional Council infrastructure fund created by the issue of the Perpetual Preference shares, over $50 million has been spent or committed to regional infrastructure to date. Some of this has been through direct funding grants to benefit local authorities – including $1.8 million committed to Tauranga City Council for the Judea Link, $2.21 million for the Little Waihi/Maketu sewerage scheme, $1.75 million for eastern Bay State Highway route security, and $1.96 million for the Lake Rotoiti sewerage scheme. A significant portion has been allocated as loan funding to river schemes across the region, and most of the rest has been allocated to qualifying project expenditure and Council infrastructure - including land purchase for the Onekawa regional park.

The current Expression of Interest (EOI) round for the $38 million set aside from the fund in the Regional Council's Ten Year Plan is seeking indications of infrastructure proposals for consideration through a contestable process. Council has indicated it will fund projects through a direct grant, a loan, as part of an equity investment – or a mixture of all three. The EOI is designed to help people understand the fund, support them in developing their applications when the official application process opens in November, and to give the Council some idea of the scope, range and size of the requests for funding coming through.

Nothing is surer; there will be some very hard decisions to make between many worthy projects – but the important thing is the Regional Council wants to use its fund to provide the greatest benefit to the region.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on [email protected] or ring me on 07 579-5150. Or you can check out my website at www.janenees.co.nz