We live in a caring community in a beautiful area of Aotearoa New Zealand, but we have had our fair share of challenges lately. These have included natural disasters, cost of living pressures and the consequences of the pandemic. This Long Term Plan includes investments that will help us all move beyond these storms, adapt and thrive over the next 10 years.

The economy

Council is budgeting carefully during this time of increasing costs. That means finding savings where we can while continuing to pay for the essentials, including our roads, pipes, parks and buildings. We will also continue to invest in the services and facilities that make a real difference to you. We expect these tough economic conditions will be with us for some time, so the Plan is particularly focused on containing costs as much as practicable. We plan to limit major new expenditure in the first three years, while progressing planning work for larger capital projects that can have longer lead times.

Climate change

Climate action is a key priority for Council and the Long Term Plan has many workstreams aimed at reducing carbon emissions and adapting to climate change impacts. Council is developing a Climate Strategy to sit alongside its existing Climate Action Plan to give the strategic context and long-term objectives for Nelson’s climate response.

Work is continuing on adapting our city to deal with the impacts of climate change and growing our resilience. In particular Council is taking an adaptive planning approach, as recommended by the Ministry for the Environment. A comprehensive regional climate change risk assessment is being completed in collaboration with Tasman District Council. This will enable a better understanding of climate change risks, and the consequential impacts on people, economy, governance, the built and natural environments. The risk assessment will inform Council’s identification and evaluation of a range of adaptation options. Community engagement will be a critical part of the identification and assessment of options.

Council also has a significant programme of work aimed at reducing its own operational emissions and supporting the Nelson community to reduce its emissions. Since the baseline year of 2017/18 Council has reduced its operational emissions by 89%, driven significantly by reductions in landfill emissions through infrastructure upgrades such as capturing methane and flaring. Work on further reductions in Council and community emissions is included across the 10 years of the Plan.

More people

Approximately 5,000 more people are likely to be living in Nelson by 2034. This will bring the population to nearly 61,000.

Most of these people will be moving to Nelson, rather than being born here. And quite a lot of us will be older, with around one in four aged 65 or more. (At the moment, one in every five people is in this age group.) Having 5,000 more people will boost our economy, but Council needs to make sure it can house a growing population. Council has also committed to both fostering a healthy environment and transforming the city centre to attract more people into the city to live, socialise and support local businesses.

Central government changes

Changing legislation and new requirements from central government will have direct impacts on the community and Council. For instance, the previous Government’s reform of three waters would have resulted in 10 publicly-owned water entities being created to manage New Zealand’s drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater networks.

However, the new Government isn’t proceeding with this approach and will legislate other changes over the next two years. We don't know the detail yet, so taking a common-sense approach Council has chosen to include the proposed budgets for three waters services for the full 10 years of the Plan and will keep up to date with the Government’s reforms. We will also be monitoring the changes proposed to resource management legislation (how we regulate activities related to our buildings and the environment).

We have assumed the Government will continue to provide Council with a 51% subsidy for eligible aspects of the transport work programme. The total subsidised transportation work programme is approximately $393 million over 10 years including approximately $196 million of central government funding. Any Government decision to reduce funding to Council could have an impact on the work we can undertake or on rates and debt levels (refer Significant Forecasting Assumptions for further information). We welcome the Government’s recently published draft Government Policy Statement on land transport (GPS) 2024 that increases land transport funding by 30% on the previous 2021 GPS, albeit the change in priorities of the new Government may shift the balance of the projects for which we will receive central government funding.

Working together

We work with our iwi partners, community organisations, neighbouring councils, and Central Government to make life better in Nelson. More details on how we will strengthen our partnership with iwi and Māori are available in the ‘Statement on Fostering Māori Participation in Council Decision Making’ supporting document.

Nelson City Council and Tasman District Council already work together where this allows us to deliver better, lower cost services in both areas, and we are looking to further this collaboration wherever it makes sense. We also work closely with Central Government agencies to access funding and support for local projects.

Council undertakes a huge range of work that supports and influences your daily life. We are asking for your views on eight key issues, but there is much, much more that we will be tackling over the next 10 years. A selection of projects and investments that we will progress over the course of the Plan are highlighted below.