updated 11 May 2001
We are busy gathering evidence ready for 21 May when evidence has to be exchanged with the other parties to this dispute.
We are also preparing papers to counter Saturn's demand for us to deposit $20,000 as security for their costs should we loose the case. This is a typical big business move that frequently either frightens away smaller litigants or may prevent them from presenting their case should the court rule the the deposit must be made.
There are now thirteen residents groups who make up CORA. The latest to join is the Point Howard Association.
TelestraSaturn and Downer Connect have been charged in the Wellington District Court with committing a criminal nuisance over the erection and maintenance of the overhead communication cables. The charge follows and accident in which a woman was seriously injured when a truck caught some of Saturn's cables.
And last week a truckdriver was unable to drive down a street in Wadestown because of the height of the cables. He had to push his heavy load down the street on a pallet. A formal complaint was made to Sasturn but so far they have taken no action.
There is unlikely to be more news before the case is heard
ENVIRONMENT COURT DATE SET
We now have a date to go to Court it's 28 May. Saturn's case is that they haven't done anything wrong and that in any case nobody is really concerned as there have only been 25 people complaints in the whole of Wellington. They argue that most of those 25 complaints have come from Shrapnell and a few hotheads. We have to prove to the Court that they are wrong on both counts.
If you have made a complaint to Saturn or the City Council please sent a copy to the Chief Reporter of the Dominion newspaper. If you haven't made a formal complaint and still feel that the cables should not be there then please do write a complaint both Saturn and the Council. It doesn't have to be a long letter, just a couple fo sentences describing what concerns you will be sufficient. the addresses to write to are:
Chief Executive, Telstra/Saturn, 1 Hinemoa Street, Wellington
Chief Executive, Wellington City Council, PO Box 2199, Wellington
and send a copy to The Chief Reporter, The Dominion, PO Box 1297, Wellington.
You may have noticed that the Dominion has been carrying a number of stories on what it calls the Cable Debacle in particular take a look at the issues of March 28, 29 and April 4 and keep watching I get the feeling there are more to come.
If anyone has any material that shows the effect of the cables on our environment please send them to John Shrapnell at 27 Hanover Street, Wellington, as soon as possible.We may be able to use the material in our evidence to the Court.
If you want to donate to the cost of the Court case then you can send your donation to The Treasurer, CORA, PO Box 27-426 or to 27 Hanover Street.
(updated 21/3/01)
There is no public comment time available for me to speak to this report so I offer these brief comments and hope that I may be able to expand on these at some other time. I hope that you will read them before beginning your discussion.
Congratulations on taking some positive steps to address these problems. It is now six years since first we tried to draw Council's attention to these matters, first as individual residents associations and then as CORA. It is encouraging to see a paper offering some action at last
That the Council seek the removal or legalisation of overhead lines and associated equipment that are found to be not lawfully established.
As part of CORA's discovery process prior to taking this matter to Court we obtained documents from Council files relating to the Council's issuing of a Certificate of Compliance to Saturn.
These documents revealed two startling things.
First, in applying for consent Saturn clearly specified that it would only be erecting two overhead cables each of 12mm diameter. It then qualified this slightly be saying that in some areas it might replace one of the 12mm cables with a network cable of 19mm diameter.
Second Council issued a Certificate of Compliance to Saturn based on this very specific application. It said that the application complied with the District Plan. The District Plan rule 23.2.1 is unequivocal it says only one new telecommunication cable may be erected therefore the Council was in error to issue a COC that defied its only legally adopted plan.
Saturn has exceeded both the District Plan and the Certificate of Compliance by erecting bundles of up to 10 or more cables. The Chief Executive advanced to CORA the argument that one cable could be defined as any number of cables as long as they were bundled together. We have never accepted this argument but even if we had, the argument cannot be sustained in this case since Saturn has specified the diameter of the cables.
That the Council promote the placing underground of existing overhead lines (and associated equipment) by acting as project manager and arranger of funding for resident's initiated projects.
This proposal may seem reasonable at first glance, after all that's following the user pays principle isn't it? That might apply if residents were the only users of their street and if the look of their street did not impact on the rest of the city; but that's not the case.
Already all new subdivisions must be undergrounded.
The Council has given Saturn and others a list of streets where it requires services to be undergrounded. Most of these are the main tourist routes - Oriental Bay to the Airport etc but there is also a rather strange list of other suburban streets that the Council says must also be underground. These include Grafton Road, Owhiro Bay Road, Hornsey Road, Dunedin Road, Thane Road, the Crescent, Northland Road.
The Council now says it wants to extend this list to include those streets that are used by visitors such as the route up to the Mount Victoria lookout.
Are the roads leading to the Brooklyn lookouts or those in Northland, Hataitai, Karori, Highland Park, Khandallah or Wadestown any less important? And even if your street doesn't lead to a lookout is that any reason why it should be left out? It seems to me that all Wellington streets should be treated equally since together they make up the look and feel or our city.
If the Council is now going to obtain around $2 million a year in rates from the now privately owned utilities, then it would seem fair and reasonable that this money should be used in the first instance to underground all cables. When that has been achieved all future money could go into the overall city purse.
John Shrapnell Communications, President of CORA
Despite the widespread angst provoked by former Finance Minister Roger Douglas' radical economic restructuring in the 1980s, Kiwis haven't been slow to appreciate the economic competition he encouraged. They flocked to Ansett when it flew in to tackle Air New Zealand, welcomed Sky, TV3 and Prime in contrast to State-owned broadcaster TVNZ and acknowledged the options that Pete's Post and National Mail handed another SOE, NZ Post. Similarly, they welcomed Vodafone and Telstra Saturn when they set up in competition to Telecom.
Choice, consumers seem to believe, is choice, even though they don't always exercise the luxury - one has only to look at the profits, or lack thereof, of many of the rivals to long-standing enterprises.
But so popular has Telstra Saturn been in Wellington that chief executive Jack Matthews was a finalist in our recent Wellingtonian of the Year awards. Obviously, Wellingtonians value Telstra Saturn's willingness to take on Telecom, New Zealand's biggest listed company, in the domestic market. At the same time, however, Saturn's made itself unpopular in some parts of the city.
In late December, a coalition of 11 residents' associations said that, after a year of fruitless mediation, a process recommended by Environment Court judge Shonagh Kenderdine, it will ask the High Court to force Saturn to remove the thick black cables that drape power poles all over the city, and are an eyesore. They want the cables buried as has happened in Seatoun, and will happen in Christchurch. Coalition spokesman John Shrapnell said of the mediation: "It's been a waste of time."
Wellington City Council is involved, too. Its District Plan restricts overhead cabling to one cable for each utility. Telstra Saturn has argued, and the council has accepted, that a 10-cable bundle meets that criteria. The residents' associations vehemently disagree, contending that the bundle breaches council planning policy. They want the High Court to determine the matter but are cashstrapped: Mr Shrapnell says he needs a fighting fund of $10,000.
The residents of Wadestown, where Mr Shrapnell himself lives, are the most vocal. That's not surprising - many city-to-sea views have been spoiled by the heavy black cables that blot the vista. The city council can expect therefore at least one candidate in the Lambton ward to make this an election platform, and for other environmentally inclined candidates elsewhere in the city to do likewise.
The council might ease the situation were it to help the coalition take the matter to court. Even half the dollars needed isn't much to contribute. Or it might consider becoming party to the legal action itself. The council has an obligation to encourage business, especially hi-tech business, to the Capital. It cannot rely on socialist governments expanding the public service forever. But at the same time, new enterprises have to understand what makes Wellington tick. And one of those drivers is a fiercely protective approach to the harbourscape.
By BERNIE NAPP
Wellington residents want to take Telstra Saturn to the High Court early next year to make the company take down its thick overhead cables.
Last year a group of 11 Wellington residents' associations took its battle to the Environment Court where Judge Shonagh Kenderdine recommended mediation.
However, a year of discussions had brought the two sides no closer together, Coalition of Residents Associations president John Shrapnell said. "It's been a waste of time ... too little, too late."
Mr Shrapnell said today at the next step was to file a case with the High Court "as early as we possibly can in the new year, as soon as we have enough money to do the thing we need to do".
A fighting fund had been set up to collect the $10,000 needed to go to the High Court.
Donations ranging from $25 to one of several dolars had so far come into the coalition's coffers, Mr Shrapnell said.
The coalition argues that the bundles of up to 10 cables are in breach of Wellington City Council's district plan, which allows only one overhead cable for each utility. Telstra/Saturn claims - and the council has accepted - that a 10-cable bundle is a single cable, a position the coalition rejects.
Mr Shrapnell said Telstra/Saturn was putting up thinner cables in Christchurch, but the company had told him it would not replace thick cables in Wellington with the thinner ones.
He said Wellington residents were not against Telstra Saturn services, just the overhead cables.
Telstra Saturn spokeswoman Anna Shipley said she was disappointed at the coalition's decision to go to court, and disagreed that mediation had failed. Overhead cables in pockets of Wadestown, Mt Victoria and other suburbs would go underground next year in response to residents' concerns.
Telstra Saturn had been meeting with residents regularly, and had made progress on the dispute, she said. The company hoped to meet the coalition in the new year to clear up any misunderstandings.
It was unrealistic for residents to expect Telstra/Saturn to put all cables underground - it would be far too expensive.
"We are looking for a sensible solution," she said.
Evening Post Friday 29 December
3 January 2001-01-03
There was a telling juxtaposition of articles in Friday's Evening Post (29/12/00). Heading Page 3 was Top town's Council sees the future and immediately below Residents plan court fight over cables.
As a Wellingtonian I was wrapt when Wellington took the Top Town award. It is a great place to live, we do have a vibrant inner city life and we are becoming a tourist destination. I'm proud to live here
So I should be pleased that our Councillors have been reviewing the city's direction for the next ten year to ensure that our city maintains its reputation; but then I read the story below.
Eleven of the city's residents associations have to pool their meagre resources in order to fight an international company that's destroying our views and our environment. Why is this sort of fight left residents? Where is the City Council in this matter? It has a District Plan that says one telecommunication cable may be erected but the Council does not enforce its own plan.
Read through the Council's expensive colour brochures that deal with Our City, Our Future or the Annual Plan. There are great words about the value of our environment, about our views, our waterfront, our green city but not as word about our cables. There are plans to remove hazardous trees to make a better, safer city but not word about the Saturn overhead cables that destroy our views and are slowly pulling over power poles.
Other Councils around the country have District Plans that they enforce and which prevent the sort of problem that we have suffered.
It's now just nine months to the local body elections. Why not ask your Ward Councillor what they will be doing to ensure that web of overhead cables is put underground. If that's too hard then back us in what seems to be an inevitable battle in the High Court.
John Shrapnell
President of the Coalition of Residents Associations