Long term plan hearings this week have given community members an opportunity to get up front and face to face with Kaipara District Council elected members.

Kaipara District Council ran community consultation for its Long Term Plan 2024 – 2027 between 4 April and 4 May 2024. The final count for submissions came to 742, from individuals, community groups, iwi, businesses and organisations. This was almost triple the 246 formal submissions received during the 2021 – 2031 long term plan process.

Elected members and council staff held thirteen face to face and drop in events across Kaipara District during the consultation period, so that people could ask questions and speak to Council before they submitted their thoughts and feedback. Now hearings provide an opportunity for people to speak to their formal submissions.

Mayor Craig Jepson acknowledged the record number of submissions and said he was heartened by the strong level of community engagement into the long term plan process.

“It has been so thought-provoking to hear from individuals, businesses, community organisations this week. We are working through every single piece of feedback that was sent in, and listening to those who chose to speak to their submission. It has been great to hear so many different community voices speak up for Kaipara.”

Next step is for Council to deliberate on the Long Term Plan 2024 – 2027 on Wednesday 5 June. The deliberations can be watched by anyone on the Kaipara District Council YouTube channel, or in person.

“We have some more hard yards ahead of us now,” says Mayor Jepson,

“We always said we would keep working to make further inroads to reduce costs, and soften any rates increase wherever possible. Together with the community submissions and working closely with staff I speak on behalf of all of the elected members when I say we will be looking at every corner to get it lower than our initial projections. It is a really delicate balance between rates affordability and delivering the level of service our community expects. We are doing everything in our power to strike that appropriate balance.”

Council is scheduled to adopt the final Long Term Plan 2024 – 2027 on 31 July 2024.

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