‘I’ve grown up’: Ben Bell to seek re-election as Gore’s mayor

Saturday, 22 February 2025

New Zealand's youngest mayor Ben Bell announces he'll stand for re-election in the Gore district.

Despite an “incredibly tough” first 18 months of his tenure, Gore district mayor Ben Bell has announced he is standing for re-election in October’s local body elections.

And while last time his election promise was to get ‘back to basics’, this year he’s campaigning on ‘results you can see, with work still to do’.

“Looking over the 2½ years that I've been in now, we've worked really hard to get back to basics. But there's still work to be done, we still need to grow this town. We still need to bring more business here and really give confidence back to our agricultural sector,’’ he said.

Bell listed several decisions made by the council during the term which he claimed had “realigned” the council. These included scrapping the Streets Alive project, appointing a new chief executive, streamlining upper management to reduce administrative costs, and redirecting funds to essential services — a 20% reduction in reserves spending while increasing investment in road maintenance part of that.

Ben Bell says he’s keen to continue driving a new prosperity in the district if he is re-elected.

Wasteful spending on the Mataura River bridge proposal had also been halted, (which he called the ‘ghost bridge’), construction on a pipeline under the river had begun, while common sense ideas such as fencing the Elizabeth St retention basin had gone ahead, he said.

“Some mayors want their names on fancy new buildings. I’m more interested in delivering a pipeline that no one sees but will keep people healthy,’’ he said.

Ben Bell says he’s a much better public speaker now than when he became mayor, and he’s stopped saying “awesome” and “cool” at council meetings. (File photo)

But there’s no sugar-coating the fact that the district’s 21.4% rates rise also happened on his watch.

“We won't be doing 21.4% again, thankfully,’’ he said.

“That was really tough, really, really tough. It's people at the end of the day, it's me and you have got to pay those rates. It's all of us. It's just the times that we're in, and it's the underinvestment that's happened in the past that we've got to play catch-up on, and we have to find a way forward’’.

Prime Minister Christoper Luxon with Gore District mayor Ben Bell and Southland District mayor Rob Scott at a meeting at Waimumu. (File photo)

But did he get “back to basics”?

“I think this Long-Term Plan that we're about to release definitely shows that … there's no vanity projects in there, it's just our core business. It also shows the challenges that we've inherited as well — large, large deficits coming out of that Covid period. I know people don't like that buzzword, but it still has a long tail, and also the cost of living crisis, all of those inflationary periods that we've now got to deal with,’’ he said.

Ben Bell and chief executive Stephen Parry at the latter’s last council meeting on April 23, 2024. The pair did not get on and an intermediary had to be appointed to work between them. (File photo)

Ben Bell, 24, looks back on his first year as the mayor of Gore.

Bell claimed there was a new prosperity in the district and he was keen to keep driving it.

“We have amazing innovators in the sheep and dairy industries, to our oat grains as well. We have all of this amazing ingenuity that we need to prosper from and really build our district. We've got amazing businesses that have moved to town — that business confidence is coming back.

“But we've got to do our stuff brilliantly at council, right? We've got to be really easy to work with. And at the moment, to be brutally honest, we're probably not as easy to work with as we could be … people need to be able to walk into council and be able to set up businesses, or be able to get consents. There is a lot of positivity around, it's just harnessing that and making sure that that's not subdued by council getting in the way.’’

Ben Bell and current chief executive Debbie Lascelles, who he says he gets on well with. (File photo)

Bell became New Zealand’s youngest ever mayor at the age of 23 after he ousted incumbent Tracy Hicks by eight votes. Hicks applied for a recount but it was declined by a district court judge.

That marked the start of a tumultuous 18 months — former chief executive Stephen Parry called his working relationship with Bell ‘’irreparable“, his deputy mayor resigned after other councillors signed a requisition, meetings were held behind closed doors, there were petitions and protests, information was leaked to the media, Parry and Bell failed at mediation and seven councillors called for a vote of no confidence in the mayor, which was not passed.

“It's been a really hard term,” Bell said. “There was a good year and a half that was really, really tough … I mean, having my resignation asked for is incredibly tough,’’ he said.

“I probably could have given it a couple more years before I stood … but this has been job experience to the max. Some of the stuff that I and also this council have had to trawl through is really quite remarkable.

“I think I've grown up. I've probably got a few more great years to give it another go as well — its all experience.’’