Annual Report 2023-2024

Our Annual Report and Annual Report Summary for the 2023/24 has now been independently audited, finalised and signed-off by our Council, officially closing off our work for the last financial year. The Annual Report looks back, taking stock of what we accomplished compared to what we set out to achieve in the Annual Plan for 2023/24.

From Chief Executive Aileen Lawrie and Mayor Len Salt:

Our year was dominated by recovery activity following the damage left by severe weather events, including Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle. Our focus was split between rebuild and recovery activities while endeavouring to deliver business as usual.

Like the wider community we were challenged with access and travel, meaning some of our activities have been more logistically difficult and expensive to deliver. Cost increases across our major contracts featured in our financials, because of closed roads, and other supply chain, and cost escalation factors. We thank our communities for bearing with us in the wake of the weather events, with reduced service levels in some cases.

Our ratepayers and residents can take assurance that this Annual Report has been very robustly audited. Anyone who thinks there’s no council transparency just needs to look at the report itself and the audit opinion that it contains,” says our Chief Executive Aileen Lawrie.  

After the huge disruptions of the North Island Weather Events, we’re starting to get back into a more usual routine of business. But in the last 18 months we’ve actually produced three Annual Reports, which is very unusual. That’s a huge amount of work. One of the audits was started on the first day that we were in an emergency declaration for Cyclone Gabrielle.

As were dealing with the cyclone recovery, we produced an Annual Plan which involved making some very difficult decisions to prioritise roading repairs to get our network reopened and link up our isolated communities. We administered the government’s recovery funding and managed to still deliver our normal services.

On top of that we produced our Long Term Plan for 2024-2034, a very significant project over the last year. All of these were delivered on time to meet our statutory deadlines and in spite of changes to government policy after the election, especially relating to how our water services should be treated.

Despite the workload and the challenges, we still achieved a great deal:

• Grants funded $1.975 million in recovery expenditure, not counting roading assistance, in the 2023/24 financial year. This was used to start repairing damaged infrastructure, kick-start business development and help our communities become more resilient.
• Since the severe storms of early 2023, we've received approximately $14 million of external recovery funding, including $8.5 million from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to fund business recovery grants.
• We worked with our Civil Defence Community Response Groups to set up resilience kits containing communications and other gear and supplies for 36 of our communities to help them get by in the event of isolation in an emergency.
• We repaired 26 road sites that were damaged by the severe weather. Some, like Tapu-Coroglen Road, required extensive earthworks and retaining walls.
• We continued with our award-winning Shoreline Management Pathways Project and began investigations into options to protect the Te Kauaeranga | Thames township coastline.
• We officially opened the Kōpū Marine Facilities Precinct in June 2024, capping nearly 10 years of planning and development.
• We’re continuing with our drinking water supply improvements with a new plant now providing more supply in Whangamatā. Preparations have started for the new Pūriri water treatment plant and water system improvements.