Local elections: Will Upper Hutt elect Guppy for a ninth term, or vote for change?

This story has been updated to show that Sir John Thorn served 33 years as mayor.

In Upper Hutt, a battle between continuity and change is in its final days.

Voters in the city of 47,500, north-east of Wellington, are deciding whether to stick with established incumbent Wayne Guppy, or take a chance on someone new.

Five candidates are taking on one of New Zealand's longest standing mayors.

Guppy, who's 71, was first elected mayor in 2001 after serving one term as a councillor. He's been in office for 24 years, and is running for his ninth term in office.

A Local Government New Zealand spokesperson said if he's voted in again and completes his term he will be on par with former Gisborne Mayor Harry Barker, who served as mayor for 27 years between 1950-1977. Sir Tim Shadbolt is also one of the longest-serving mayors, including stints at Waitematā City in the 1980s, and as long-term Invercargill Mayor.

An Otago Daily Times obituary shows that Sir John Thorn, a mayor of Port Chalmers Borough Council, could be the longest-standing mayor in New Zealand, serving for 33 years between 1956 and 1989.

"This is not about age, this is actually about results and success," Guppy said. "And you've only got to look at Upper Hutt particularly over the last ten, fifteen years and talk to anyone and they'll tell you that Upper Hutt's changed, for the better."

RNZ tested that theory on the streets.

Some voters praised the development of the craft beer village Brewtown, the Whirinaki Art Gallery, and multi-million dollar upgrade to the local pool H20 Xstream, while several others pointed to a lack of retail options in the local mall and on the city's central strip where multiple shops have "For Lease" signs plastered on the darkened windows.

"This place used to be alive," Upper Hutt resident Janice Ferguson said, "now there's so many empty shops..it's hard, people go to Lower Hutt to go to the mall, because our mall's got so many closed shops in it."

Candidate Peri Zee said reinvigorating Main Street would be her number one priority.

"You can see it looks run down. What we need to do is have the council focus on the things it can control, which is the public realm, rather than trying to give money to individual developers."

Zee is the only candidate who is not a sitting or former councillor, but said her experience as an urban planner and transport adviser stands her in good stead for the role.

Current Deputy Mayor and candidate Hellen Swales, who's also a co-ordinator for business advocacy group the Jackson Street programme, said the biggest issue facing the city was affordability.

She said she scrutinised the council's long term plan in an effort to reduce an average 19 percent rates increase to 15 percent for this year.

"Whilst we didn't land at 15 percent, we landed at 15.78 percent, which I think is pretty close.

"I think what that tells the community is that I have a really good understanding of what it takes to run a multi-million dollar business."

Swales said while she had been Guppy's deputy for six years, that didn't mean she always agreed with him.

"Just because you're the deputy mayor people think you're actually his mouthpiece. Sometimes I am if we agree on issues, but I am actually voted in by the community, not by the mayor."

Current councillor and leadersip consultant Emma Holderness acknowledged the 15.78 per cent rates increase was a sore point for many residents.

She said the increase had come from a much needed change in how infrastructure was funded, from debt to depreciation.

Holderness said if elected mayor, she would work to keep rates low - but would not support rates capping.

"I think we can see from the state of our infrastructure across the region, that years of wanting to take a good political stance and keep rates low, has led to under-investment, and I think the community is paying for it now."

Upper Hutt has not followed Lower Hutt or Porirua in launching a referendum for voters views on amalgamating Wellington's five councils.

None of the current councillors were in favour of a Wellington super-city, or complete amalgamation with Hutt City Council in Lower Hutt - its offices were 25 minutes away, but with a seperate set of staff and councillors.

Several of the candidates believed in developing more shared services with Lower Hutt.

"I think our relationship with Lower Hutt has perhaps worsened a little bit over the last term. I'd like to see us rebuild those regional relationships, more. And I think we need a different type of leadership, going forward," Holderness said.

Current councillor and owner of a car wrecking business, Blair Griffiths, agreed strengthening regional relationships was important.

The mayoral hopeful said water reforms were amongst the biggest issues facing the city.

Griffiths also said a priority for him as mayor would be to get more messaging out to residents.

He said the council didn't react well to losing its local paper the Upper Hutt Leader, axed last year by its publisher Stuff, and that affected people's perceptions of what goes on in the chamber.

"I think they feel left behind, you know they're not taken along for the journey."

As of 1 October, only 21 percent of Upper Hutt's eligible population had cast a vote in the election.

Former councillor Angela McLeod, who also runs a local motorcycle dealership business, said she too would aim to make the council more transparent if she became mayor.

"The council often has workshops, where rightly so, they get around with all different sorts of staff and everything and discuss things, but they're actually not involving the community in those."

Mcleod said a strategy to revitalise the CBD was shelved at a closed-door meeting. She said she wants to open most workshops up to the public eye.

Upper Hutt chief executive Geoff Swainson said the council did not shelve any city centre revitalisation strategy at a workshop - and said workshops were for briefings and discussions only, not for decisions.

Swainson said the public were consulted on a decision to stop a city centre development strategy in its long term plan.

He said the council had been operating in an "extremely difficult financial environment", requiring it to make tough decisions to reduce operating costs and rates.

He said a vibrant city centre remains a priority for the council, including targeted funding for city events from year 4 in the plan.

Guppy disputed the council's relationship with Lower Hutt had worsened and said no council works more closely with it. He also said he would consider opening up workshops to the public if elected.

He said central government was looking at major change for local councils - from the Resource Management Act, to water reforms, to potentially centralising or regionalising building consenting.

"There's got to be, I believe, a very experienced voice working through those issues for the people of Upper Hutt."

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