About the Long-Term Plan 2024-34 | Mō te Mahere Pae Tawhiti 2024-34

The Council opted for the middle level of investment for the Environmental Regulation and Protection core service, including the targeted rate for Christchurch and Banks Peninsula to raise $1 million in Year 1 to support biodiversity work in the district.

The work involved in this core service

Our Environmental Regulation and Protection services are:

• Setting the regulatory frameworks for the management of Canterbury’s environment
• Providing authorisations in line with the regulatory framework for the management of Canterbury’s environment
• Ensuring compliance with the regulatory framework for the management of Canterbury’s environment
• Responding to events where environmental harm is occurring
• Leading collective efforts to prevent, reduce or eliminate pests
• Partnering to protect and enhance indigenous biodiversity and mahinga kai
• Collecting and sharing high quality data, information and advice on the Canterbury environment
• Providing resources to support local action.

These services contribute to Council’s long-term aspirations to:

• Accelerate regeneration of the natural environment
• Enable improved water and land use outcomes, and
• Empower our communities to take action.

Council decisions

The Council agreed to begin work on the review of the Regional Coastal Environment Plan for Canterbury in 2025.

Other decisions for this core service include:

• A net decrease of general rate, targeted rate and user pays funding of $35K in Year 1, and $5.7M in Year 2, to make budget adjustments
• Budget adjustments totalling a $535K decrease from rates in Year 1 and $5.7M in Year 2. This was the total of the budget adjustments, plus a further consent deficit of $500K in Year 1.

For the Community Preparedness and Response to Hazards core service, the medium level of investment option (Option 2) was also approved by Council for inclusion in the final Long-Term Plan, including the district-wide rate for Selwyn to fund river resilience and flood management.

The work involved in this core service

Our Community Preparedness and Response to Hazards services are:

• Building and maintaining flood and river resilience
• Providing a flood warning and advisory service
• Providing data and information on contaminated land and natural hazards
• Enabling civil defence emergency management support and leadership to the community
• Regulating and promoting navigation safety in ports, harbours, rivers and lakes.

These services contribute to Council’s long-term aspirations:

• Empowered communities taking action
• Prepared and resilient communities.

And to the Council’s strategic priorities to:

• Foster relationships to underpin regional leadership
• Help communities respond and adapt to climate change.

Council decisions

Other decisions for this core service include:

• A total combined increase to affected river and drainage rating districts of $757K in Year 1 for adjustments to river and drainage budgets
• An additional $65K for Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM)/Rural Advisory Group (RAG) as an adjustment
• Increase maintenance of our regional parks by $200K.

Despite uncertainty around ongoing central government funding, the Council approved the option with the highest level of investment in Public Transport Services, with some Council decisions leading to some reductions in the targeted rate across Greater Christchurch.

The work involved in this core service

Our Public Transport services are:

• Providing bus and ferry services in Greater Christchurch and Timaru
• Providing Total Mobility funding, and support for Community Vehicle Trusts

These services contribute to Council’s long-term aspiration to:

• Champion safe, reliable, multi modal transport choices

And its strategic priorities to:

• Promote sustainable and healthy living and working environments, and
• Help communities respond and adapt to climate change.

Council decisions

During deliberations, Council indicated that further decisions regarding public transport will need to be made in the Annual Plan 2025/26 (Year 2 of the Long-Term Plan 2024-34), given the high level of uncertainty around funding availability through the National Land Transport Programme 2024-27.

Several key decisions made at deliberations related to delaying some work until government decisions are clearer, including:

• Decreasing targeted rate funding of $600K in Year 1 by delaying work on the mass transit business case until Year 2
• Decreasing targeted rate funding of $2.9M in Year 2 by delaying work on route 1 improvements until Year 3, to align with the improvements to direct service between the main urban centres of Waimakariri (Rangiora and Kaiapoi) and Christchurch city
• Decreasing targeted rate funding of $500K in Year 1 by delaying the start of route 7 uplift until January 2025.

Other decisions affecting Public Transport were made to decrease the cost to ratepayers, including:

• Decreasing targeted rate funding by $500K by removing public transport support for cruise ship passengers
• Decreasing targeted rate funding by $100K by not replacing bus services where Ministry of Education funding has been removed.

There were two decisions to support further work in key areas of the network, including:

• Increasing targeted rate funding by $400K in Year 1 to enable early engagement with Halswell and the rest of the community, on the rest of network business case
• Increasing targeted rate funding of $800K in Year 2 by bringing forward the improvements to the direct service between the main urban centres in Selwyn (Rolleston and Lincoln) and Christchurch City from Year 3.

Our community has told us repeatedly we need to do more with our public transport services. We’ve worked hard with our partner councils and providers to identify ways to transform our services and ensure we can meet the needs of our growing urban areas. We are dependent on central government funding, and must consider the impact of this when making significant investment decisions.

Other decisions made by Council outside of the core services during deliberations include:

• Approving the Fees and Charges schedule, with these changes:
  • Introducing a fixed fee type, but not exceeding $3,500 (inclusive of GST) for simple applications only that utilise the direct decision pathway
  • Other consent applicants will pay a deposit and charges for actual work done to process their application.
• Reviewing the Fees and Charges schedule annually and updating this where required
• Removing the swing moorings levy for wreck recovery and replacing this with a Uniform Annual General Charge (UAGC)
• Approving the level of Uniform Annual General Charge (UAGC)/Uniform Annual Charge (UAC) at 8% of total rates as proposed [AP1] in the draft Long-Term Plan
• Approving a net decrease of funding from rates of $6.205M in Year 1. This net reduction is made up of budget adjustments and includes removal of all funding contributions to the Christchurch Foundation’s Green Philanthropy Fund
• Finding $2M of organisational efficiencies during Year 1
• Reducing the general reserves replenishment for Year 1 to $1M from the $2.5M proposed.