Thursday 1 April 2010

Draft Annual Plan due for release on 12 April

Clutha District Council’s draft Annual Plan 2010/11 will be released for public consultation on Monday 12 April.

The Annual Plan is the document which sets out the projects and services Council intends to deliver over the next financial year and also includes estimates of how much this is expected to cost.

This year’s draft Annual Plan forecasts an overall rates rise of 3.66%, well below the 7.66% which was predicted in the Long Term Council Community Plan 2009-19 (Long Term Plan) adopted last year.

Chief Executive Charles Hakkaart said the decrease is mainly due to reduced expenditure on roading, due to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) last year deciding to provide Council with considerably less roading assistance than Council had requested and budgeted for.

“Generally expenditure on projects and maintenance for other activities is going ahead as is planned,” he said.

However, Mr Hakkaart said the draft Annual Plan also proposed three amendments to the Long Term Plan:

• To provide an extra $1.3 million to the proposed Clutha Recreation Centre, lifting Council’s proposed contribution from $1.2m to $2.5m.
• To change how the ratepayer contribution to the Recreation Centre is funded.
• To (a) grant $1m to West Otago Health Trust and (b) rate a Uniform Charge to the households which fall within the West Otago Health service area, to pay back the loan and interest charges needed to fund the grant.

The public will be able to comment on these proposals and on the draft Annual Plan, once the draft plan is publicly released on Monday 12 April.

A summary of the draft plan will be published in the Clutha Leader on 15 April and mailed to those ratepayers who don’t receive the Leader. Council will also be consulting directly with ratepayers potentially affected by the West Otago Health proposal via a direct mailout.

Submission forms, as well as full copies of the draft Annual Plan, are available online by clicking here or from any Council office or Service Centre from April 12. Submissions to the draft Annual Plan will close on May 10. Council will then hear verbal submissions on Thursday 20 May, before meeting again on Wednesday 9 June to consider all of the submissions and debate any changes. The Annual Plan will then be adopted and the rates struck for 2010/11 on Thursday 24 June.

ENDS