Council election year has rolled around again.

Sitting councillors dust off their collection of corflute signs and mull whether their grinning mugshots can serve again, or are too far removed from the reality of three more years’ toll on their actual looks.

Challengers plan their campaigns. Where have the current lot gone wrong; what are the policies and pitches that will appeal to voters in October?

Many Hutt ratepayers will be appalled with news another sizeable rates increase is proposed for the new financial year beginning July.

With elderly parents on the pension in their own home in the Hutt, and a daughter and son with large mortgages, it’s not lost on me that rates bills cause a lot of dismay alongside all the other cost of living pressures.

So what’s going on with Hutt City Council’s costs?

Planned closure of the Ava rail bridge walkway is imminent but Hutt City Council hasn’t given up on finding a solution to preserve pedestrian and cycle access in the medium term.

Councillors are very aware of the popularity of this Hutt River crossing point. For school students, Bob Scott Retirement Village residents, runners, dog walkers and plenty of others – including Ava station rail commuters – it’s an important and convenient piece of infrastructure.

But there’s also no getting around the fact it can’t be left as is.

‘Four more years of stench’ makes an attention-grabbing headline but it’s misleading in terms of the messages delivered at this week’s public meeting on the Seaview sewage treatment plant.

It wrongly gives the impression we’re stuck with the current level of stink for the foreseeable future.  In fact, there are grounds for optimism that odour improvements might only be a month or two away as moves to get complicated systems that govern what is a live biological process back into balance.

Are the ways we’ve done things in the past, and the facilities we maintain, fit for purpose and cost-effective going forward?

That’s a question Hutt City Council is asking itself on a number of fronts in an effort to keep a lid on rates rises. 

RFID technology could help Hutt City Council cut down on the more than $1 million a year that contamination of the yellow-lid recycling bins is costing ratepayers.

HCC wants to help people who don’t understand what can be recycled, and to intervene if the reason for contamination is because a landlord refuses to order a big enough red-lid rubbish bin for a tenant.

There will be high interest in Hutt City Council’s draft Parking Strategy when it’s released in September.

There are plenty of challenges. We know we’ll lose around 700 carparks in the central city with Riverlink’s floodway improvements. Some suburban streets are choked with parked vehicles because – with the blessing of central Government legislation – developers of many of the new townhouses springing up everywhere have provided insufficient, or no, off-street parking.

Decades of policy and habit have turned us into a car-centric society. But 98% of the national fleet burns fossil fuels, and greenhouse gas emission reduction imperatives grow ever-more urgent – if for nothing else because we’ll have to buy billions of dollars’ of overseas carbon credits if we fail to meet our international climate change commitments.

Do we have too many bottle stores in Lower Hutt?  What hours should supermarkets and other ‘off-licensed’ retail outlets be able to sell alcoholic drinks?

Hutt City Council is reviewing its Local Alcohol Policy (the LAP) are we’re keen to hear from residents, business operators, health and community agencies and hospitality industry stakeholders.

It’s a shame that enjoyment of a great run of summer sunshine is being shaded by the prospect of tougher water restrictions.  But hats off to those who are leaving the car unwashed, taking shorter showers, leaving frugal hosing of plants until the cool of early morning or evening, and other measures to conserve what’s in the storage lakes. 

Hardly surprising people’s hackles are up over pleas for restraint when everyone can see water leaking across footpaths from broken council pipes and faulty tobies.  But recognition is growing that resource and workforce limits mean leaks need to be triaged and priority given to the worst of them – not always the ones that are most visible.