2018-28 Long Term Plan most exciting, ambitious and challenging yet

Council’s latest ten year Long Term Plan (LTP) 2018-28 which is now open for feedback is starting to generate a lot of interest and discussion.

Ruapehu Mayor Don Cameron said that it was not surprising given the 2018-2028 LTP was the most exciting, ambitious, and yet challenging ten year strategic plan that Council has produced so far.

“This LTP will set Ruapehu’s development agenda for a generation,” he said.

“People are telling us that they want to see the momentum they see and feel around them maintained and if anything are impatient for things to happen faster and this LTP is all about how we plan to deliver this.

There are big opportunities in this LTP alongside some equally big challenges.

“We are needing to balance community development aspirations against infrastructure development demands notably in water to meet legislated compliance requirements.

“Council believes that we are able to achieve both these goals and it is not a matter of choosing one or the other or dropping levels of service in other areas.

Up until now we have progressed township revitalisation projects with relatively small amounts of expenditure.

We now need to commit to some bigger spending if we are going to deliver the real change and development that people want to see and that will give our townships a foothold in the future.

Meeting government legislated compliance requirements in drinking water and wastewater will however be the big driver of new debt which is projected to rise to $68.5m over the ten years of the LTP.

Mayor Cameron said that Council will be working hard with government to obtain funding assistance for water projects and bring the projected debt level down to a more acceptable level.

“Council has been quite successful in gaining government financial support for projects which now totals over $5.3m over the past three years and ratepayers should have every confidence that if government funding is available we will get our share.

We are also asking whether people would support a move to district wide rate funding for water schemes rather than each township paying for their own scheme as they currently do.

District wide rate funding for water would smooth out the big jumps in rates for individual schemes when their plant is upgraded and help out our smaller communities with long term affordability.

Other specific issues we are asking for feedback on include questions on; funding our local roads, how to manage our solid waste when the landfill closes, fairly sharing the cost of tourism promotion, how best to unlock government’s $2m commitment to the Ohakune Mountain Rd cycle trail and what community facilities do we need.”

Mayor Cameron said that finding out more about the key consultation issues was easy either through one page Fact Sheets, attending one of the LTP community meetings, or for the entire big picture to see the LTP Consultation Document.

“All LTP documents and details can be found on Council’s website ruapehudc.govt.nz, at your local Council office, or give us a call on 07 895 8188 or 06 385 8364 and we will send them out to you.”

Follow this link to the LTP info on Council's website: https://goo.gl/1ifFre

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