Looking forward to 2025 it’s going to be a busy year in the district as many of our large capital projects come into reality, and my hopes are high that the economic headwinds we’ve been fighting for the past few years will begin to ease.

With the dairy price increasing last year and the start of official cash rate cuts, I am optimistic that these positive signals will strengthen other sectors and help restore some much-needed business confidence.

The Council also has an obligation to proactively deliver our capital works to support economic activity, and in line with community expectation. There has been a renewed focus on using the tools we have available to support our ability to ‘shop local’ to obtain the external services Council needs while ensuring we get best value for money.

My focus is on delivering the projects we outlined as part of the Long-Term Plan, and the priorities that have come from that, and myself and the Council will be supporting the Chief Executive to deliver on our agreed priorities in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.

With reforms of water services, Building Control and the Resource Management Act, 2025 is likely to see some of the most significant changes to Local Government since Timaru District Council was brought into being more than 30 years ago.

All Councils need to decide on what structure will deliver water services in their district and provide a comprehensive water delivery plan to Government by September next year. Tied to this is the Claremont Treatment Plant upgrades, both the structure for water and this latter project are the key deliverables this council needs to concentrate on.

With Building Control and water reform, there is an opportunity to be more collaborative with our neighbouring Councils. We work together on some things well; however, there is no point for a combined population of around 65,000 to have three building control authorities.

However, like in previous years I’ll continue to resist any moves to take the local out of Local Government. Central Government says that it believes in localism, and in my opinion the people of South Canterbury don’t have much to gain from further centralisation of decision making in Wellington.

You may have noticed we have started to deliver some of our parks and recreation services in-house. This hasn’t occurred since 1993.

The drive to deliver more services in-house is about both level of service commitments with the community and being more efficient with the ratepayers' dollar. There has been a focus on consultants in the last few years; however, our contractor costs are the largest single cost to the Council and where we will continue to make changes.

Our revenue and rates reviews are also a focus for the next two years leading into the Long-Term Plan. The way we rate and the equity of the current system hasn’t been reviewed for some decades, and we need to make sure that the amount everyone contributes is evenly distributed.

2025 will also see us starting the build phase of the Theatre and the upgrade of the Stadium at Aorangi Park. Everything running well, we will see the delivery of these major projects in the 2026/27 year.

After what’s been a tough few years, I’m hoping that our whole district will thrive into 2025 and as a council we’ll be setting the expectation that we do everything in our powers to help this happen.