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NPDC settles on next year’s work programme with a 9.9 per cent average residential rates rise

Local News Featured news
PUBLISHED: 19 FEB 2025

After months of work to cut costs, NPDC has locked-in a reduced average residential rates rise of 9.9 per cent for the 12 months from 1 July this year.

This is lower than the 10.2 per cent originally planned in year two of the Long-Term Plan 2024-34.

The Council yesterday (TUESDAY) confirmed its draft Annual Plan, which includes various cost-savings across the business.

Mayor Neil Holdom said Council had taken steps to minimise the increase including an organisational restructure and line by line review of expenditure to land at the 9.9 per cent figure and would be working hard to ensure costs were controlled more effectively in future.

“We’re facing the challenges that every council is New Zealand is facing, and have had to balance the cost of living crisis with the fact that we are an infrastructure provider with a duty of care to current and future generations to ensure roads, water and waste water assets and related community facilities are adequately maintained after years of underinvestment,” says the Mayor.

“Council will be actively looking at all its costs over the year ahead and working to lift productivity by safely managing down non-productive costs like traffic management as well as growing non-rates revenue to help absorb the increasing external costs including insurance, interest costs and complying with unfunded edicts from central government.

“This decision reflects a long-term view of our responsibilities to safeguard New Plymouth District’s public asset base by investing in the health, vibrancy and critical infrastructure on which to sustainably grow our economy and underpin our quality of life.”

At the same meeting, the Council adopted fees and charges for 2025/26, some of which will be inflation-adjusted.

Decisions made by the Council include:

  • Reducing the residential rates rise (year two of the Long-Term Plan 2024-34) from 10.2 per cent to 9.9 per cent.
  • Rethinking transportation activities to match available funding, following a significant cut in funding from the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.
  • Doing more work to better align budget requirements for some projects to match their construction timeline.

Fast facts:

  • NPDC manages assets worth $3.8 billion and has an operating budget of $263 million.
  • NPDC looks after more than 1,200km or roads, 1,600ha of parks and reserves and 800km of pipes across the district.
  • NPDC provides about 28 million litres of water per day to just under 28,000 homes and businesses and handles 25 million litres of wastewater each day from more than 37,200 properties in the district.