Annual Plan and Fees and Charges schedule adopted

Councillors approved the 2025-26 Environment Southland Annual Plan at Wednesday’s (25 June) full Council meeting.

They also approved the 2025-26 Fees and Charges Schedule.

Environment Southland Chairman Nicol Horrell said the Council will continue its focus on increasing community resilience to flooding but has reduced the average rate increase from the forecast 12.9% to 8.8% for 2025-26 – mainly due to operational savings.

“Looking to the year ahead, we will continue to focus on improving the region’s resilience with improvements to our flood defences, progressing flood modelling, and supporting catchment-wide and individual actions to improve environmental outcomes.”

While there were no significant changes to the 2025-26 work programme from the Long-term Plan 2024-34 (LTP), the Council was acutely aware of the ongoing cost of living concerns in the community, he said.

“Considerable work has gone into how best to progress the regional work programme in the face of changing costs and income, while maximising value for the community.”

This aligned with central government direction around councils delivering essential services and core infrastructure, and spending responsibly, Nicol Horrell said.

Following consultation in April, the Council is introducing a regional river management rate (excluding Waiau rating district) based on capital value recognising that all Southlanders benefit from river management activity, and in particular the flood infrastructure network.

“Individual rate amounts will vary as the overall rate is made up of a mix of land and capital value rates. Some properties not currently paying rates for river management may notice higher increases in their rates,” he said.

The previously forecast 12.9% average rates increase in the LTP had been driven by a range of factors, a reduction in the use of reserves to offset rates, a planned increase in the region’s flood infrastructure work programme, and the end of government funding for our Jobs for Nature Programme, alongside operating cost increases such as inflation, interest and asset funding (debt and depreciation).

A proposal to change the way Environment Southland charges for services relating to gravel extraction and consent monitoring was also consulted on and approved, alongside an investigation into the possibility of a waiver for royalty charges, where there is a significant public good purpose.

The 2025-2026 Annual Plan is available on the Environment Southland website – click here.

Environment Southland has options available for paying rates in instalments. See www.es.govt.nz for more information.