📣 PUBLIC MEETING – Sunday 1st March

Concerned about rising rates?
Wondering what’s really going on behind the numbers?

Come and hear what hasn’t been clearly explained — and why it matters to you.

This is your chance to understand the process, ask questions, and decide for yourself whether this is good financial management — or more of the same.

Why we are holding this meeting:

6.4% Rates Increase – are you seriously okay with that?

The Long Term Plan said the rates increase this year would be 7%.
Then it blew out to 8.6% in December.
Now it’s 6.4%.

The Council will try to proclaim this as a triumph, and that they have made the “hard choices”.

But this isn’t restraint.
That’s still well above inflation.
And it’s still coming out of your pocket.

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What You Weren’t Told

Two key briefings in December were closed to the public

“Agreements in principle” were made before most ratepayers knew what was happening

Core costs — staffing and operational spending — have not been properly tackled and have blown out – again

No evidence of a genuine fixed-budget discipline

No economic strategy that reflects the cost-of-living crisis

If this is “tightening the belt”… whose belt is it?

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The Reality

This year’s budget process has shown – again – how flawed it is. The process just adds cost upon cost. High rates rises each and every year is the result.

To make the numbers fit, Council is now planning to arbitrarily cut funding to some business and community groups. Council calls them “low hanging fruit” but in reality they are just random cuts.

But where is:

A full review of priorities?
A reset of the work programme?
A serious challenge to internal cost growth?
A commitment to inflation-level increases?

It hasn’t happened.

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Know the Game

What an Annual Plan really does
How it differs from the Long-Term Plan
What councils are legally required to do
Where ratepayers actually have leverage — and where they don’t
Because understanding the process is the first step to challenging it.

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The Bigger Question

If 7% becomes 8.6% becomes 6.4%…

What stops 6.4% becoming 7% or 9% next year?
And the year after that?

At what point does “average” become unaffordable?

Why the Council’s approach to setting rates needs to be turned on its head – and how that can happen

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This Affects Everyone

If you own a home.
If you rent.
If you run a business.

You are paying for this.

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What we’ll cover at the meeting – everything above, plus ………..

What we’re doing
What you can do
How to prepare for the next Long-Term Plan
How to push for real financial discipline

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Enough drift.
Enough above-inflation increases.
Enough decisions made before the public conversation.

Show up. Get informed. Demand better.