Timaru District Council
Long Term Plan 2024-34

We are pleased to put our draft Long-Term Plan out for public consultation and start the conversation on where our priorities should lie over the next 10 years.

Our focus in this plan is on striking a balance between rates affordability and meeting our levels of service delivery.

There’s a lot of talk about balance in this LTP, and we’ve tried to strike a good balance across all areas of council spending and service provision. We shouldn’t act alone in coming to these conclusions, it’s vitally important that you take this opportunity to tell us if you think we have this balance right.

My priorities are getting the basic infrastructure right, then it’s about delivering as many of the things you’ve previously told us you want as we can, while setting our council on a strong and sustainable long-term financial standing.

Timaru District has some of the lowest rates in the country, and while on one hand it is a sign the council was run in a fiscally prudent and conservative way, it
also meant that in previous years we may not have been putting enough money in the bank to replace our infrastructure when it was needed.

For a lot of that infrastructure that time is coming due, and we have to act to ensure these critical services are in good shape for now and the future.

Properly planning for this through depreciation is never going to be an exciting topic, nor make the front page of the paper, but it’s the main tool we have to ensure we meet these current and future infrastructure needs.

You won’t see a proposal to go from the bottom of the rates pack to the top, but our rates need to be set at a sensible level to cover the cost of providing the services you use every day while also ensuring we can replace the pipes, the roads and the bridges when it becomes necessary.

While infrastructure is my priority, around 80% of the capital spending we set out in this plan is on water, roads and waste, no one wants to live in a district with nothing to see or do. That’s why we need to balance this spending with improving and updating our cultural and recreational facilities.

With the public focus on the refurbishment of Theatre Royal & Heritage Centre you could easily be mistaken in thinking it made up the bulk of council spending.

While it is a large project encompassing both the restoration of the Theatre Royal and the building of a brand-new museum as a shared facility, it is still in line with what we’d usually aim to spend on cultural facilities over the life of a LTP.

Ensuring we make careful choices around timing of projects and prudent use of debt means we can deliver the core services our communities require as well as
provide the kind of services that make people want to visit and move to our district, and hopefully make it their home.

So here is our plan laid out for your comment. It’s not just our plan, it’s a plan we’d love the community to help shape, so make sure you take time to read it and come back to us with what you think about it.

Nga mihi, Nigel.