A lack of road funding has forced a North Canterbury council to delay its Long Term Plan, which sets the rates for Hurunui residents.
The Hurunui District Council was forced to revise its 10-year blueprint for the region after being refused the funding it wanted from Waka Kotahi/New Zealand Transport Agency.
Councillors voted on Tuesday to defer adopting the plan by three weeks to July 15 while they wait for the revised plan to be audited.
Mayor Marie Black said the council had put together an ‘‘ambitious’’ roading programme, which had been knocked back by Waka Kotahi.
Council chief executive Hamish Dobbie described Waka Kotahi’s response as ‘‘under-whelming’’.
‘‘It is extremely disappointing, given the amount of work we put into getting our roading programme together, and it looks like they (Waka Kotahi) didn’t even look at it.’’
Mr Dobbie said it appeared Waka Kotahi had simply based Hurunui’s funding on previous years’ allocations and did not consider the district’s roading needs.
Waka Kotahi’s overall funding had increased, but Hurunui’s allocation was not enough to fund the upgrades needed to ensure the resilience of the district’s roading network, he said.
‘‘The ratepayers of this district have said ‘Yes, we are willing to pay more’, but the transport agency has said ‘No, we are not going to fund that’.’’
Mr Dobbie said he would be writing to Waka Kotahi to express the council’s disappointment.
He advised councillors to stick with the proposed 10.98 percent average rates rise so the council could at least complete some of its roading programme.
Chief financial officer Jason Beck said the revised plan was only completed and sent off to Audit New Zealand on Monday.
The council will now hold an extraordinary meeting on July 15 via Zoom to adopt its Long Term Plan and set the rates for the next 12 months.
Mr Beck said it would allow enough time for the council to prepare its first rates demand for the new financial year, which needs to be sent out to ratepayers by August 6.
‘‘We are confident there won’t be anything come out of left-field from the Office of the Auditor-General which we will have to address.’’
Should the council be unable to adopt the plan in time, the first rates demand would based on the instalments from the 2023/24 financial year, which could lead to a big jump in the next three instalments.
The government had extended the deadline to September 30 to complete Long Term Plans due to changes to the Three Waters legislation.
Councils also had the option of deferring Long Term Plans until next year and completing an enhanced annual plan this year, Mr Beck said.
‘‘We decided to go ahead with a Long Term Plan this year, and if we had had a favourable response from the transport agency we would have been on track.’’
Waka Kotahi has been contacted for comment.
- By David Hill
Local Democracy Reporter
• LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
