It’s quickly back to business as the new year gets under way, with a full schedule of Council meetings and workshops planned, from budgets to biodiversity.

The Annual Plan determines next year’s rates and charges and sets out how we’ll deliver services and capital projects. It should largely align with Year 2 of the Long Term Plan, adopted last year.

At the workshops on January 29 and 30, Councillors will go through the proposed budgets of the different Council departments line by line and give direction. It is always a juggling act as Councillors balance work that needs to be done against what also would be nice to do.

The workshops are being held in the Council Chamber, at Te Whare Whakatere, and will be open to members of the public who want to observe. If you’re thinking about standing in the Local Body Elections later this year, then these workshops are a great opportunity to see how Council ticks at budget time.

While the formal part of the budget process doesn’t start until the end of January, you can be sure 2025-26 will have a work programme heavily dedicated to providing the essential services that our community wants and needs – services like maintaining and improving our roads, safe drinking water and wastewater disposal, running high demand Council facilities, effective management of our domains and open spaces, and efficient rubbish collection.

Doing this core work well requires consistently good planning, maintenance and effort – every day of the working week.
It was great to end 2024 with the announcement by Transport Minister Simeon Brown that Government would pay for Ashburton’s second urban bridge, with Council paying for the connecting roads.

The cost of building the connecting roads is most likely to be more than the $7.5m Council has set aside in its Long Term Plan, but we’ll have a more accurate estimate after the detailed design is done.

Council will work with New Zealand Transport Agency during the design phase to make sure we have a connected and cohesive road and bridge, that works best for the community.

The Methven Community Board has its first meeting of 2025 in the Mt Hutt Memorial Hall on 27 January and they will no doubt be talking about the community’s response to their proposed strategic plan for the town, which sets out what they want to achieve over the next 10 years.

It is an exciting opportunity for the community board, which is leading the project with the help of Council, and there have been almost 100 responses so far, including submissions from Methven primary school students.