Six-point plan to lower rates increases

Whanganui District Council’s elected members explored budget options for the Long-Term Plan 2024-34 and discussed a six-point plan to lower rates increases in a livestreamed long-term plan workshop last Tuesday, 5 December.

Council chief executive, David Langford, says the Long-Term Plan 2024-34 will provide a roadmap for Whanganui for the next decade. It will set out where we aim to be by 2034, what we will need to do to get there and how much it will cost, giving a full picture of how all council activities are managed, delivered and funded. “A huge amount of work has gone into building this draft 10-year plan. We have applied the kind of commercial thinking you would normally see in the private sector, but without taking the social good out of the council,” David Langford says.

“Whanganui is a growing city with big aspirations for the future. Our six-point plan identifies what we can to do to keep costs increases down in the short term, while also positioning the district for a bright future in the medium to long term.”

He says, “We can think of each of the six points as a lever – projected rates increases will change depending on how hard we pull each lever.”

The six points are:

• population growth

• improving efficiency

• exploring alternative funding for projects

• cutting council services

• selling assets to repay debt

• identifying sources of non-rates revenue.

David Langford says the rates rise was initially estimated at close to 24 percent, but “after a lot of hard work and deferrals wherever possible, we are now down to three rates scenarios for consultation – high (14.8 percent), medium (9.5 percent) and low (5.8 percent)”.

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