The financial strategy guides the way the Council makes decisions over income, expenditure, borrowing and investments. It helps explain how Council plans to manage its financial challenges and opportunities, and summarises the implications of these plans for ratepayers.

In setting the budget the Council has had to make choices about what it can fund, to ensure that rates rises remain stable and that our communities can afford their key infrastructure. In the next ten years and beyond, significant programmes of work to renew and upgrade our roads, wastewater and water supply systems are planned. These works are necessary to ensure our infrastructure continues to provide quality services and meet required standards.

Overall, Council has sought to put the long term needs of the community first and has taken a proactive approach to addressing the opportunities and challenges facing our district now and in the future. While Council has budgeted prudently in the Plan, our proactive approach means that the headline rate increase for the next ten years will be higher than rate increases have been in previous years. We are confident, however, that this will put the district in a stronger position to meet the needs of our current and future community.