Bits and Pieces of News. Cost Savings, Festival of Lights Estimated Income, Moving Away from the Sustainable Lifestyle Capital Theme & Unelected People Voting.

We’ve been busy working on a few things behind the scenes and haven’t had a chance to update on some bits and pieces of news from our First Management Meeting with the NPDC in March. A few items came up that people may be interested in.

Operational Cost Savings

The Management Team have been tasked with finding operational cost savings so the NPDC has balanced accounts at the end of this Financial Year on 30^th June 2026. At this stage, the accounting error last year, which added $3.1M to the budget, and was credited to Ratepayers, plus the Commercial Sorting Depot which has run over budget by about $2.2M over 2 years mean there will be a budget overrun.

About $5M has been overspent in the current Annual Plan. This will not be covered with increased debt – so these savings need to come from reduced operational costs which is being worked on now.

Some in the community have concerns this means Libraries and Pools will be badly affected. We don’t know what savings are being identified, but we are pleased there is a new focus on not adding debt to meet overruns. We will update when we know more about this.

Summer Festival of Lights

The Festival of Lights impact on local GDP has been assessed. 162,000 people visited the lights this summer. Between 60 – 70% of those visitors were from outside the district, meaning some of them also spent money on accommodation, retail and hopso while they were here.

The event costs $1.5M to put on and it has been estimated to contribute between $6M and $7M in return to the local economy.

A Team Planning Session for Elected Officials.

The elected officials spent a few days away (earlier in the year) working on a new strategy and direction, as a team, for the future of New Plymouth.

They are moving away from the “Sustainable Lifestyle Capital” theme – to a new vision – “Thriving today – Resilient Tomorrow”.

The update to the LTP in 2026 will be based around this new vision. We are told ratepayers will also have the opportunity to feed in to this new vision with ideas for the LTP.

Simon Watts and changes to Unelected people voting on Council Decisions.