Federated Farmers Submission for Grey District Council Long Term Plan
We support the Draft LTP focusing on addressing ‘core services’ (the three waters, roading, and district planning) as a priority. The proposed rates increase will add hundreds of dollars in additional rates to the average farmer’s rates bill. This additional cost is coming at a time when farmers are facing cost pressures in other areas. Council must continually seek to find operating savings and prioritise expenditure.
Rates increases
- Given the need to invest in core services, we consider the overall proposed rates increase of 3.51% is reasonable.
- We also support the intention that rates increases remain around this level for the operative life of the plan.
- Rates increases are generally driven by spending in ‘core services’ of roading, the three waters and regulation. However, as Council will be aware, any increase over the rate of inflation will likely exceed the increased earnings of most ratepayers and there remains a need to continue to seek savings.
Rates affordability and debt benchmarks
Council remains comfortably within the cap on rates increases of 4.5%. We support a specified cap on rates increases as a way of prioritising spending but we ask that the cap on rates increases is reduced to 3.5%. This will allow Council to meet inflation related costs while signalling to the community that rates affordability is a key concern and there is a need to prioritise.