Which leads me on to some light reading I’ve just being doing on the Wakatipu Transport Study stage three consultation information document.

This wonderful piece of bureaucratic expertise postulates a resident population of more than 31,000 in Queenstown-Lakes by 2026. It also postulates a peak-day population of nearly 87,000.

The report shows growth of well over 200 per cent in 18 years. The mind boggles at living with this growth.
Without doubt, we’ll need more people employed by Queenstown Lakes District Council to measure the growth – they won’t actually do anything other than measure, of course.

We’ll probably need two mayors, one in charge of measurement and the other to do as little as possible about the measurement. However, 87,000 people is a fair number.

This reminds me of my opening comment about my doctor friend’s two-minute speed record. The transport study says if nothing’s done about population growth – horror – it will take us all of 15 minutes to get from Queenstown to Frankton.

Just imagine: Queenstown will be like Dunedin, Invercargill, Christchurch and, dare I say it, Auckland. We’ll be subject to the morning and evening traffic delays found in every major city and town in New Zealand, if not the world.

I also note to my disgust that QLDC looks set to embark on building a gold-plated, over-looed, bathroomed extravaganza at the end of the Recreation Ground in town for new council chambers. It’s reported this will cost $35 million.

This year’s QLDC annual plan shows an unbelievable surplus of income over outgoings. From memory, the surplus is actually greater than the ordinary rates paid by we suckers – or is it sucked? Now I can see why this massive surplus is there – to pay for the dreams of our council boss, mayor and councillors.

I repeat my earlier advice to QLDC: don’t build the council chambers in town. The new building will house the biggest concentration of working people anywhere in the area.

All QLDC will do by constructing their dream chambers in town is to exacerbate the problem foreseen in the transport study. Too many people will be here without the transport infrastructure required.

The solution is simple. Build a couple of bus lanes on Frankton Road and up the parking charges in town to make it unattractive for workers to park downtown. Have ample cheap parking at Hendo’s Hole in Frankton and bus the workers and others back and forth from there to town.

QLDC must buy Hendo’s Hole and build out there.

Simon Stamers-Smith is a local lawyer and raconteur