There is big news today – Neil Holdom is not running for Mayor in 2025.
There is big news today – Neil Holdom is not running for Mayor in 2025.
He didn’t give us a lot of notice. His registration had to be lodged by noon on 1st August – he announced his decision not to run with 2 days to spare.
That doesn’t give the City of New Plymouth a lot of time to adjust to the fact he isn’t running and he’s walking away from all the bits of started plans he has set up for the city.
We also find it interesting that so many things have been worked on, and some brought forward, in recent months, yet Neil isn’t running again. It may have been better to leave the push for these projects in recent months for the new Mayor, and new Council team, to make decisions on.
We know among our supporters there will be some who are pleased the tenure of Mayor Holdom has come to an end. We also wonder if some of the pressure our growing number of supporters have been applying has had a part to play in Neil’s decision not to stand.
Neil Holdom liked to tell us he was all about the infrastructure. Time will tell on that when we see in coming years just how much infrastructure has to be replaced and whether this is behind the schedule of where it should be.
Many people in New Plymouth would have liked to see less spent on fancy projects and more go into the basic fundamentals of infrastructure.
We’re running a story in a couple of days about debt that is coming our way, and we had a chart for that story, which with today’s news, we thought fitted better with this story. (The chart is attached).
This chart tells a story – how things have changed with rates and debt in New Plymouth since Neil Holdom became Mayor in 2016.
According to the Long Term Plans, rates are 82% higher and debt is 3 times higher than when Neil was first elected.
We acknowledge a team of Councillors have also been involved with Neil making the decisions to increase debt threefold, but the person leading this team since 2016 has been Neil Holdom - and agreeing to all this debt starts with the person at the top.
So triple the debt since 2016, does this make Neil Holdom’s legacy the New Plymouth Master Mayor of Debt ?
We will watch with interest in the next few days to see who puts their name forward to be our New Mayor after the election.
We’ll also watch with interest to see what plans Neil Holdom may have next.
Read what RNZ had to say about Neil Holdom’s press release today here:
Posted: Wed 30 Jul 2025