Council is proposing to allocate $20 million to the second Ashburton Bridge project as part of its annual plan and budget for 2026-27.

The cost of the bridge project has not been finalised yet, but Council is committed to paying for the connecting road from Carters Terrace to the roundabout at Grahams Road. The draft budget proposes to borrow the $20m.

Council’s contribution to the second bridge project was discussed on Tuesday as part of a Council workshop on the draft annual plan for 2026-27.

Mayor Liz McMillan said the workshop gave Councillors a global view of the budget, and the opportunity to flag projects or work that they wanted a deeper understanding of at further annual plan workshops in the next month or so.

“At first flush, the draft budget shows an average rate increase of 10.2 per cent, but we'll be scrutinising this. Rate rises affect people differently, depending on where they live and the Council services they receive.

“Some work we are already committed to, like the second bridge connecting road, introducing the new food and green waste kerbside collection and investing in our three waters networks. There’s also other work we need to consider, and there are business cases for additional wastewater projects, an upgrade to the septic system at the Hinds Domain and for operations at Lake Hood.

“One other thing that is also affecting the 2026-27 budget is a smaller contribution from revenue sources that have previously offset general rates, like dividends, transfers from reserve funding and interest on our investments. This current year those rates contributors came to $4.1m, but this coming financial year we are budgeting for $3m.”

Councillors will meet again on Tuesday 10 February for another annual plan workshop – it is open to the public and will be livestreamed on Council’s Facebook and YouTube channels.