No change to regional council’s priorities for next year

Environment Bay of Plenty decided to make no change from its draft work programme and budget when it adopted the Annual Plan for the 2010/2011 financial year at a meeting today.

Chairman Cronin said council will spend about $79.6 million compared to $83.1 million forecast in the Ten Year Plan 2009-2019

“In preparing the draft plan we worked hard to reduce the rates increase to just 3.9 percent while also providing the level of services the community has said it wants,” he said.

“One third of this will be funded from investment income and one third from government funding, user fees and charges and other revenue.

“This means just one third will be funded from general and targeted rates on our ratepayers,” Chairman Cronin said

“The 70 submissions were generally supportive of the approach we took, and as a result we’ve adopted the Annual Plan without making any further changes,” he said.

Major priorities for the year continue to focus on improving water quality of the Rotorua Lakes, providing passenger transport and helping to reduce air quality problems in Rotorua. A new priority is to start work on developing an integrated management approach for Tauranga Harbour, similar to the Rotorua lakes management approach.

Changes confirmed from the Ten Year Plan include:
• additional resourcing for an integrated management approach for Tauranga Harbour
• no dairy discharge rate for Rotorua farmers in 2010/2011
• a $2.1 million grant for the Maketu/Little Waihi sewerage scheme coming from investment reserves
• funding the $1.9 million grant for the Lake Rotoiti Sewerage Scheme from investment reserves instead of general funds and targeted rates
• providing a grant to the Animal Health Board for bovine tuberculosis control
• retaining the current number of accessible buses in Rotorua and no increase in services for Tauranga
• bringing to an end the HazMobile collections due to a reduced need for the service
• not running the first year of the Regional Infrastructure Fund, instead directly funding the two sewerage schemes grants.

The Plan includes targeted rates for providing passenger transport, helping to reduce air quality problems in Rotorua, restoring and protecting Rotorua lakes (particularly focusing on four priority lakes - Rotorua, Rotoiti, Rotoehu and Okareka) and providing and maintaining flood management within flood-prone areas.

ENDS

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