Every three years the Council is required to create a Long Term Plan (LTP) that outlines the investments and activities we provide on behalf of the community over the next decade.

Mayor Dan Gordon says getting the budget right for the coming ten year period has been a challenge, but the Council has landed on a budget that’s prudent and responsible.

As part of the development of the draft LTP the Council reviewed all current projects to reduce anticipated rates increases from 19% down to 8.94% - or $4.75 per week for the average household.

“This is a 10 year plan and the increase this coming year is the largest before we return to a projected amount closer to the 4% mark in coming years,” says Mayor Gordon.

“As we all know, the last three years has seen inflation rise significantly. All households and businesses have felt this, and Council’s aren’t immune to inflation either.

“The Local Government Cost Index (LGCI) always runs higher than the Consumer Price Index (CPI), but we’ve seen a large jump too. For example, insurance has gone up 60%, labour 11% and construction costs between 30 and 40%. We’ve also already committed roughly 2% of our annual budget to repaying the earthquake loan and MainPower Stadium.

“In preparing this LTP our challenge was to continue to meet our communities’ expected levels of service while accommodating for growth-related projects, without resulting in a rates increase that’s unaffordable during these tough times.

“For this reason, we have deferred $120 million of non-essential work to bring our rate increases to what we understand will be one of the lowest in Canterbury.”

“We are still however proposing spending around $693m over the next 10 years – evenly spread out between replacement of assets, increasing levels of service and growth.”

Included in this proposed spend are the key issues the Council wants public input on which include:

1. How we’ll prioritise the natural environment
2. Building the right facilities at the right time
3. Extension of the Trevor Inch Memorial Rangiora Library
4. Funding flood resilience and improvements
5. Rangiora Eastern Link road.

Click here to learn more and make a submission.

“We think the Council’s Draft Long Term Plan delivers a budget that’s prudent and responsible for the current environment,” says Mayor Gordon.

“We look forward to receiving submissions and to working with our community to decide where and what we should focus on over the coming 10 years.”

The draft Long Term Plan engagement period runs from 15 March to 15 April.