Aspiring Environment Canterbury councillor Felicity Price says she will be catching the bus into ECan and is challenging
all the other city-based councillors to reject a councillor carpark too.
Currently chair of the Arts Centre of Christchurch (which has two-thirds completed possibly the world’s biggest heritage
restoration), a former ECan staffer, and author of the controversial communications audit at the Christchurch City Council, Felicity Price is standing for the Environment Canterbury Council Central Ōhoko Ward with Independent Citizens. She
was also responsible for leading the fast-tracked effort to save the Court Theatre after the Canterbury earthquakes, and
was recipient of Queen’s honour ONZM.
“ECan has rightly declared a climate emergency but councillors need to follow it through by taking their own decisive
action. I’ll be catching the bus into ECan as I did when I worked there,” Felicity Price says. “I won’t be taking a car
park at ECan – and I challenge all other Christchurch-based councillors to do the same. We should all be backing up our
environmental claims with action.”
Price says the bus network in greater Christchurch isn’t working and needs a radical rethink.
“Christchurch has the lowest bus patronage of any of the main centres and that needs to change,” she says. “ECan is
supposed to have created a public transport system that makes it easy for people to leave the car at home, and to want
to come into town on the bus,” she says.
“But the buses are still running empty or half-empty outside peak hours. Before the last election, ECan said it was
going to increase bus patronage to pre-earthquake levels. It’s still nowhere near that,” she says. “It’s time for an end
to all the hot air and make some changes so Christchurch people become as willing to get on a bus as they are in
Auckland or Wellington.”
Felicity says she has a track record of getting things done to benefit the Christchurch community, and this will
transfer over to ECan, which she says she knows well, having worked there for several years in the past.
Felicity lives in the Environment Canterbury Ōhoko Central ward.
“It’s where I went to school, where my children grew up, and where my office was based. So I’m well aware of the
environmental issues facing the ward,” Felicity says. “I’m standing for the ECan Council because I’m convinced there
must be an environmental turnaround – ECan must put up a fight instead of giving away the city’s aquifer supply to
water-bottlers, and do more to clean up the waterways,” she says.
“What ECan let happen with the water bottling consents at Cloud Ocean is just so wrong it understandably really upset
our community. Christchurch’s precious pristine water was literally sold from under us and we had no say at all in what
it was used for or where it went,” she says.
“Even though Cloud Ocean’s future is unclear, the principle is still the same and it could happen again with other
water-bottling applicants.”
“We’ve got to get the law (the RMA) changed so that foreign companies can’t take over a water-use consent for billions
of litres of water without any consultation, hearings or restrictions. It was going to be at virtually no cost to them
and absolutely no benefit to ratepayers.”
“I remember when as kids we used to be able to swim in the rivers around Christchurch, and when we used to go fishing in
the Avon and the Selwyn. I want to make those rivers swimmable and fishable again for my grandson to enjoy like I did.”
“Christchurch is at the heart of what I do. I want it to be a great place for my children and grandchildren, and that
means doing something to protect our aquifers and waterways,” she says.
Independent Citizens president Liz Lovell says they’re excited to welcome Felicity on board.
“Felicity is yet another example of the calibre of candidates we are supporting in this election. I know her knowledge,
experience and commitment will be well received in the city," Liz Lovell says.