Like any big business, Council produces an annual report to let our community know how we performed against our budget and work programme.

The report for 2023-24 was adopted by Council last week and it reflects a year where we got a lot of work done – not quite everything we planned to achieve, but that outstanding work has rolled into the new financial year.

The 2023-24 year was marked by the completion of major projects, like Te Whare Whakatere, which opened its doors to an excited community in January. We also completed a new water treatment plant for Methven, using membrane treatment technology, and began construction of a smaller plant for Mount Somers (completed in August this year).

Our district continued to grow, reflected in the ongoing demand for our regulatory and planning services – our building team issued 502 building consents, 187 resource consents, approved 78 subdivisions plans and processed a significant number of Kainga Ora housing redevelopments.

Fixing potholes continued to be a priority and our annual residents’ survey saw a significant increase in the satisfaction of both sealed and unsealed roads.

The annual report essentially considers if Council did what we said we would do, if we met budgets and generally improved wellbeing in the district. If you like looking at balance sheets, you’ll see Council’s total revenue was about $105 million ($11m above budget mainly because of Government subsidies and grants we managed to secure for different projects), and our total expenditure was $94m.

Our financial performance must always focus on prudence, stability, service and planning for the future and while that is mostly about good and reliable infrastructure, it is also about community and connections through events like Glow in the Park, and the coming Christmas events.

Before the annual report was adopted by Council last week, it was scrutinised and signed off by Audit New Zealand and that process is a very robust one.

Ultimately, the work of council involves not only staff, but elected members, contractors and many volunteers, who bring their hard work, expertise and commitment.