We have some challenges

The past year’s weather events around the country have demonstrated how important it is that we look at how we can reduce our emissions and make better choices to help prepare for the impacts of climate change on our community.

For us, this includes work to help manage flood water, planting more trees and supporting people and businesses to reduce their emissions. 

Just like the rising repayments you may be facing on your personal loans or mortgages, interest rates for our debts have also increased.

We’re also increasing the size of our debt to fund more work. This means we’re having to pay more towards debt than we were previously. 

Those cost-of-living pressures you’re facing are also hitting us – the cost for goods, materials and services have increased significantly. We’re also having to pay far more for our insurance and power bills for all of our facilities.

We know it’s hard out there financially for our residents and businesses, and we’ve been conscious of that every step of the way to limit the rate increase as much as we can – while still being able to provide the services you enjoy and maintain our infrastructure.

A change in government isn’t a challenge as such but as we get new direction from them, that may change our work or potential funding.

While the new coalition government has only been in place for a few months, we already know of some of these. They include not proceeding with the previous government's 3 waters reforms, as well as repealed changes to the Resource Management Act.

The government has said it will be making changes in the future to make it easier to consent new infrastructure.