Rates take a bungee jump in Marlborough

Is less of a bad thing actually a good thing? Councillors arrived at that conclusion during last Thursday’s meeting when they approved a rates increase that is substantial yet also below projections for the coming year.

Marlborough ratepayers will see a 6.81 percent average jump. That is 1.8 percent less than the 2025-26 hike, 2 percent below the Long Term Plan’s forecast and 2.45 percent under the base-rates level.

Council pared down the amount with a combination of cost cuts, funding deferrals and financing adjustments. The figure is subject to the annual plan budget authorisation on 25 June.

Nonetheless, coming as Marlburians grapple with higher fuel prices and household expenses, the recalculation brings at best a small measure of consolation.

“I completely understand the reaction to any rates increase,” Mayor Nadine Taylor said on Tuesday, after people had a chance to process the change. “We’re all ratepayers in Marlborough. But at Council, we are running a large organisation [and] have some significant obligations, particularly in the water space, from Government.”

Water and roads, the mayor noted, take big chunks of the budget.  For projects such as the Sounds’ roads recovery, “pieces of work are ongoing, and unfortunately they don’t stop just because we’re in tight financial times.”

Other components such as building materials and fuel have Council facing the same economic pressures as ratepayers. The mayor observed that Marlborough has increased rates less dramatically than other districts, such as Tasman at 9.9 percent. (Canterbury and Nelson are lower: 2.9 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively.)

That said, she committed to Marlburians that Council shall be “working hard in this coming year to find additional savings to bring that rate rise down”.
Other actions

Leading into the rates deliberation, councillors approved parameters for forming the new water services organisation, postponed the Option G Murphys Creek Stormwater Upgrade for 12 months, and reviewed public submissions of ideas for the annual plan.

The water company – to be called Marlborough Waters Limited – will assume responsibility for providing services for drinking water, stormwater and wastewater effective 1 July.

Councillors ratified the agency’s constitution and set qualifications for its governing board of directors. Supported by an outside recruiter, Sheffield, a local appointment panel will oversee the recruitment.

Council is putting off the stormwater project so, as Strategic Delivery Manager Phillip Eyles proposed, engineers can “find ways to mitigate the infiltration we’re seeing”.

“It is called Springlands for a reason,” the mayor explained Tuesday, “and the advice we’ve had is that the original design is probably not the best in terms of either cost or delivering the outcome that we want.”