Queenstown Lakes District Acting Mayor Quentin Smith has expressed disappointment on behalf of the community that the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Otago Regional Council (ORC) are once again considering the partial removal of the school bus services in the Queenstown region, and the transition of students who utilise these services onto the public bus service network.

“Whilst acknowledging these are only the early stages of a proposal at this time, we’re very concerned about the outcomes for our tamariki and whānau should the draft report on Project Takahe be implemented,” said Acting Mayor Smith.

“QLDC has lobbied on this topic for a number of years and made formal submissions through, for example, Way To Go (our partnership with ORC and NZTA Waka Kotahi) and the draft Otago Regional Public Transport Plan. We reiterated our desire for ORC to ensure that QLDC is part of any decision making with the Ministry on the question of school bus routes as recently as last week.”

“We note Project Takahe is a national programme and therefore not limited to our district, but it has been a source of frustration for QLDC Councillors that we have struggled to get a confirmed position from ORC and be as closely involved in discussions as we’d have liked up to this point.”

“To ORC’s credit, it appears that it has endeavoured to work with the government at how they might transition the public network to address the progressive withdrawal of MoE-funded services.”

“We note that no final decision has yet been made and hope there remains scope for QLDC to be involved in that process on behalf of our community.”

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