Future fears fail to derail New Plymouth budget cuts

Despite fears infrastructure delays are “kicking the can down the road” there’s no coordinated opposition to New Plymouth’s new mayor as he keeps his promise to haul in rates rises.

New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) considered its 2026-27 budget on Wednesday, with cuts across the Annual Plan including almost a fifth of capital works spending.

Mayor Max Brough campaigned on holding rates rises below five percent and staff have drafted a budget with an increase of 4.9 percent.

Councillors raised concerns about ongoing impacts of cuts, but none proposed any changes to the budget.

Mayor Max Brough is set to keep his election promise of a sub-5% rates rise (Te Korimako o Taranaki)

Originally $150 million of capital spending on infrastructure and community facilities was planned.

That’s been cut to $123.5 million, including less spending on stormwater and sewerage works.

Councillor John Woodward questioned if that would be sustainable in coming years.

“My biggest concern publicly that we're kicking the can down the road … but that's gonna blow out of proportion if we don't get it right.”

Officers say the planned infrastructure work now better matches NPDC’s capacity to deliver but councillor David Bublitz also worried about the deferral.

“Are we deferring the right projects? That would be something that I would like to see some answers to before we adopt this in June.”

David Bublitz was one of the councillors questioning the infrastructure slow-down (Te Korimako o Taranaki)

The council’s finance partnering manager Matt Thomsom said officers had done what councillors asked for “around reducing the rates to a manageable level for the community.”

He said councillors would need to consider ongoing implications of the cuts in next year’s long-term plan process.

“I believe there'll be some very hard decisions coming to you as elected members … if we are under a rates cap,” Thomson said.

Councillor EJ Barrett said stormwater projects were being delayed in two of New Plymouth’s poorest streets – Pembroke Street and Glenpark Ave.

“Anybody who spends any time in these streets knows that when there is a downpour, Glenpark Ave floods and it impacts the streets, it impacts the traffic flow and it impacts the people.”

Barrett queried a $200,000 cut for the city’s gallery, library and museum.

Thomson advised reduced spending, mostly on exhibitions, would cover half the cut and the rest would come from not replacing staff who leave – or at least delaying new hires.

Barrett later said fellow councillors were out of touch with the “psychosocial” impact on library staff of ongoing budget cuts and redundancies.

“Because of who is at the [council] table, the reduction in spending is often taken out of spaces where privileged people do not spend their time – and that's been happening for some time.”

Councillor Sam Bennett also thought the budget was can-kicking.

“What I see in front of us today is the start of a short-term gain, leading to intergenerational pain.”

Despite individual objections no councillors proposed any changes to the budget.

Mayor Brough has the numbers to get final approval next month – only Barrett, Bennett and councillors Te Waka McLeod and Dinnie Moeahu voted against the latest adjustments.

Brough thanked staff for finding savings, relieved he hadn’t personally had to comb through the numbers line by line.

He said the reduced capital works programme was ambitious but realistic.

“If Council can deliver $120 million worth of work in one year that's quite an achievement.

“I think we started out at $149 million … and that was never achievable.”

nā Craig Ashworth craig@tekorimako.co.nz

LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air