"Just like any household has to do, every household is facing a cost of living crisis, they're having to make choices. She said the way out of the council's financial crisis was to stop spending so much. She agreed it was getting to a point where the council needed to weigh up the cost of doing infrastructure projects against the cost of delaying them because of both the environmental and inflationary costs. "They were waiting for another couple of more months until they had a plan on how to deal with it and my view is we know the situation, we may not know all the details but we've certainly got a sense of the scale of the issue, so we should be open with Wellingtonians, I mean it's their money and it's their debt," Calvert said. The council was not trying to sweep it under the rug but needed to get a move on with telling the public, she said. When pressed about why she waited so long before revealing the state of the council's finances she said it had all been held confidential and she had had to seek legal advice before going public. "You don't have to be a chartered accountant or an economist to know over the past couple of years, interest rates were changing, there was a recession looming, costs of materials are sky-rocketing yet our council continues to increase its capital expenditure over this time," Calvert said. She said the council had taken on too many new projects without understanding the financial consequences. "I had to find a way to try and make this public" - Diane CalvertĬouncillor Diane Calvert told Midday Report the council needed to realistically think about whether it had the capacity and finances to be able to go ahead with its strengthening projects, as well as fixing the city's water pipes infrastructure.
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