Council holds the line on spending - increase in rates-take 2.48%

The Marlborough District Council has taken a tough line on its budgets for the year ahead, rejecting or deferring many of the requests for new spending and holding the increase in the overall rates-take to 2.48%.

After a day considering submissions from across the community, councillors agreed to add only a very few new projects to the spending programme which had been proposed for the 2017-18 year.

Much of the new spending is to be funded from the extra revenue that Council has received from its forestry operation over the past 12 months, not from rates.

Marlborough Mayor John Leggett says councillors were determined to keep a lid on spending.

“Even where new spending has been approved, groups haven’t always got all they’ve sought or there have been strings attached. In some cases, rather than handing over funding, Council will simply be assisting groups to refine their budgets or to look for other funding sources,” he said.

One of the biggest projects to win Council support was the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club which had been seeking up to $400,000 for a replacement clubhouse in Picton. Council has agreed to provide $270,000 with a funding agreement which sets conditions relating to other funding sources and specifies milestone payments.

Support in principle for the Coastal Pacific Cycle Trail was confirmed with councillors agreeing to allocate $50,000 so planning can get underway immediately in consultation with the working group advocating for the trail and BikeWalk Marlborough.

A $10,000 budget was approved for a feasibility study in response to the Flaxbourne Settlers Association request for up to half a million dollars to replace the earthquake damaged building on the Ward Domain.

The Millennium Art Gallery was granted an extra $42,000 annual operating grant and an extra $65,000 was earmarked to deliver Council’s new Heritage Strategy while a proposal to establish a Film Office to attract film-makers to the region was referred to a council committee for further investigation.

The wilding pine removal programme led by the South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust was allocated annual funding of $30,000 with councillors agreeing on the environmental importance of the project to the whole region. A one-off grant of $23,400 was approved to pay for a fixed-term project manager for Picton’s predator extermination project, Picton Dawn Chorus, to enable the group to look for longer-term funding and sponsorship for its trapping equipment.

Some of the decisions involved relatively small sums but were very important to the organisations involved, said Mr Leggett. He pointed to $12,000 pa awarded to Age Concern Marlborough for a three-year programme to deter elder abuse and a $3,700 annual increase in the Marlborough Migrant Centre’s $15,000 operating grant.

“Programmes like this literally require just a few cents per ratepayer yet they can have a big impact on the quality of life across our district.”

A number of other requests, such as requests for improvements to some of the public amenities serving the Waikawa community, were referred to Council committees so the work could be advanced under existing budgets.

ENDS.

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