Marlborough District Council this morning adopted its 2022-2023 Annual Plan and confirmed a rates increase of 5.39 per cent for the coming year.

Mayor John Leggett said Council had made good use of its Infrastructure Upgrade and Depreciation reserves and had allocated $4.3M from its Covid-19 Rates Relief Reserve, which had kept the rates increase down.

“Our budget for the coming year maintains current levels of service, with a $83.4M capital expenditure programme focused on delivering core infrastructure, our highest ever level.”

“As I said at the beginning of the public consultation process in April, this year’s rates increase is mainly driven by external factors - inflation, new Government requirements and higher labour and supply chain costs.”

He thanked the 78 submitters who took the time to participate this year.

“It’s always challenging to manage the community’s desire for increased levels of service and project funding whilst also keeping a lid on rates increases, a task that is much more difficult in the current financial environment,” he said.

“Council is very conscious of the impacts of Covid-19 and general cost increases on people’s pockets. We have sought to keep this year’s rate increase to a minimum and tightened our belts, supporting a relatively small number of requests brought to us by the public,” Mayor Leggett said.

Most of the Council’s new initiatives proposed in its consultation document were largely supported by public submissions and are funded from Reserves, therefore not impacting on rates. In addition Council agreed to support some new requests subject to additional project funding being secured. A number of other requests were referred to Council committees for further consideration.

The new rate is effective from tomorrow, 1 July.

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