If you have opened your new rates bill, and you are not happy - the 2027 Long Term Plan is open for consultation right now. This is how you tell the NPDC you do not give them permission to keep putting your rates up – and this year you can use your own words.

If you have opened your new rates bill, and you are not happy - and - a lot of people are not happy - the 2027 Long Term Plan (LTP) is open for consultation right now.

Before you say to yourself what’s the point with consulting, please consider the following:

• The Long Term Plan is the document which gives the NPDC PERMISSION to spend YOUR money.
• The Long Term Plan is how YOU TELL the NPDC that they MUST bring your rates down and you DO NOT give them permission to keep putting your rates up.
• The current open consultation includes boxes where you can type what you want to say (the Alliance has worked hard to get these open text boxes included).
• There is also an issue which will make your rates even worse next year – IF the NPDC DO NOT get their costs under control NOW.
• Please, you have to get involved with the 2027 Long Term Plan process to make it different this time.

There are several issues which are causing our rates to be so high, and people need to tell the elected officials they want action taken with these issues.

We will tell you how to do that fairly easily if you are short of time, at the end of this message. We have feedback you can copy and paste. You can go straight to that now if you prefer, but we have summarised some relevant issues you may want to include in feedback.

First up, there is a very large Elephant in the room with the NPDC.

• The NPDC has more staff per head of population than many other councils. The number of staff at the NPDC have steadily grown over a number of years. Numbers were reduced for a brief time by Gareth Green, but quickly grew back to a higher figure than he had started with. The chairs were reshuffled to create new positions in other places.
• Based on 2024/2025 NPDC financials, the cost of personnel is 41.4% of the rates income received, and 21.4% of all income received. In the reported figures, over 31% of personnel earn over $100,000. These figures are based on 823 staff, but we explain how 2 divisions do not show on an NPDC structure chart, so may be paid through contracting companies, so don’t show as staff costs direct in NPDC reporting.

**Roughly 1,000 people are employed at the NPDC for a city with a population of 87,000 people.

• Dunedin has 706 staff with a population of 132,000
• Hamilton has 1,200 staff with a population of 192,000

To put this in context, if the NPDC was to reduce staff levels by 250 staff, (still more than Dunedin has with a much bigger population), with those on salaries around $75,000 – that would reduce NPDC costs by almost $19 Million !

This table compares New Plymouth staff levels with the number of staff employed in much bigger cities:

City	No. of Staff	Population	Staff per Head of Population	Percent of Staff per Head of Population
New Plymouth	1000**	87,000	1 staff member for every 87 people	1.15%
Hamilton	1200	192,000	1 staff member for every 148 people	0.67%
Dunedin	706	132,000	1 staff member for every 187 people	0.53%

New Plymouth has TWICE AS MANY STAFF, per head of population, as other much bigger cities.

Why do the NPDC have so many more staff per capita ? It is well overdue for this situation to be addressed and for staff levels to be reduced.

New Plymouth ratepayers and renters do not want to pick and choose a few measly services, trimming a few dollars off here and there, in a long term plan.

• People want the bloated costs at the NPDC addressed and reduced, and the rates invoices reduced as a result.

New Plymouth ratepayers and renters want the people who work for the NPDC, and the people we voted for, to get together and work out how they will trim the wages bill, so that we can reduce rates to a level everyday people can afford to pay, and to comparable staffing levels in other NZ cities.

**Where did we get the staff numbers from ?

• In late 2025 we did an OIA which showed the NPDC had 822 permanent staff.
• This did not include gardening, or a clear breakdown of Len Lye staff numbers.
• In a recent meeting in New Plymouth, we heard staff have been told there are around 1,000 people working for the NPDC. This would fit with the “incomplete” figures we received at the end of 2025.

Second up, people have been questioning how can an average of 4.9% apply to the increase in rates when some ratepayers are receiving increases of 15.78% and 28.57%. (we have been hearing from these people). Those types of increases are a long way away from 4.9%.

The Alliance has been noticing every year the addition of people and groups who don’t pay rates or who receive remissions from rates payments. We have attached a copy of page 4 of the rates invoice highlighting where this applies. If you find the attached image hard to read, have a look at the 4th page of your rates bill - under Remission and Postponement Policies.

We are not for a minute saying ALL of these remissions are not appropriate, we are pleased that there are circumstances that can help people in extreme hardship, but it is hard to tell from this list how many people are not paying rates, or how much their rates are reduced by. The average 4.9% gets very badly skewed if a large number of people pay zero rates.

Our thoughts are the community should be consulted on how these remission policies are created, as the number of people paying zero rates has a big impact on all the other ratepayers who have to pay the balance left to cover NPDC costs.

The third issue we want to talk about is projects. Way too many projects and way too high costs.

After the election we were told that contracts had been signed and a number of projects had to go ahead. That may have been the case, but we are now 8 months down the track. What is happening with trimming costs on contracts and getting costs under control – so that the constant increase with rates bills stops ?

For projects where contracts have been signed for part of the project only, then the rest of the project should be reviewed, costs trimmed, and remove what isn’t needed for the rest of the project. “Gold plating” has to be taken out of all projects wherever contracts have not yet been signed.

The NPDC needs to look at delivering projects in stages, completing what has a signed contract and delaying other stages for future long term plans, if and when funds are available and affordable for ratepayers.

Thousands and thousands of ratepayers and renters need to write to the NPDC and tell them loud and clear you have had enough of this type of spending and they must find ways to trim significant project costs - and - cancel projects.

A fourth issue - which has come up many times – Len Lye costing around $120k a week to run ! This is around $6.2 million a year, for an operation with so few visitors and so many staff. A serious assessment has to be done of the Len Lye centre. There needs to be a serious discussion about reducing the costs, or mothballing the operation, or closing it down.

The Len Lye Centre could not exist if it was a private company. It is running at a considerable loss, which the ratepayers and renters of New Plymouth are subsidising.

Lastly we want to talk about an issue that is going to be HUGE next year - WATER RATES.

A lot of the community do not understand that when the drinking water and waste water supply switches to the Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) next year, the usual cost of NPDC rates is not going to reduce very much.

What is paid to the new Water Company will be around what is paid in the water rate targeted rate now, and the rest of the rates bill paid to the NPDC will not be that much less to what is paid now.

Figures quoted with the Water Company set up last year showed that the cost to supply water will be about $1,700 a year, per household, in 2027. (Water Usage charges will be on top of this). Supply charges were around $1,300 a year, per household, when the CCO was created in 2025.

• Combined Rates, for the NPDC and the Water Company, will be around $1,500 MORE a year per household, in 2027, than what you are paying for your rates bill now.
• Costs for businesses will be higher than this, as business rates are higher than residential rates.

Water supply costs will continue to steadily rise each year from 2027. (We have attached a picture from the Water CCO public presentations in 2025).

Why won’t the NPDC rates bill be coming down much when water is split out ?

Because the cost to run the Council, and the debt that has been taken on to do so, still needs to be paid. You are paying rates based on the value of your land, but this is linked with a factor to what money the NPDC has committed to spend on your behalf.

• Your rates do not go down if Council costs go up.

• Most of what you are paying for right now was set by the Mayor and Councillors who ran the council for 9 years under Neil Holdom’s watch.

Many of the elected officials who were voted in last year are trying to unravel the mess of the gold plated spending and the enormous amount of debt – and the costs associated with that. But what they have had to take over, and try to reduce the costs of, is an enormous task.

So, what do you need to do ?

• You have to get involved with the 2027 Long Term Plan Process if you want things to be different.
• You have to tell the current Mayor and Councillors you DO NOT give them permission to keep spending so much money on things you do not want or need.

This does not have to be complicated and it can be quick. If you’re short of time - just do this:

Either Copy and paste the words below into an e-mail – or

Copy and paste them into a word document - or

For anyone you know without internet or computer access – suggest they just write something like this on a piece of paper.

As much as you may want to – do not swear - or they will throw your feedback away.

The quickest way to send your feedback:

People are saying I can’t afford the continual rise in rates, I want increases to stop, and I want NPDC to listen to ratepayers and renters, cut costs and bring rates down. Just write that – or your version of that – in an e-mail, or on a piece of paper.

Put a heading on the page “ Feedback for the 2027 LTP Consultation”, write your name, and drop that off at the NPDC, or email that to enquiries@npdc.govt.nz

If you want to say more, select other things you may like to write, like:

• I do not give you permission to keep putting my rates up. You must reduce your costs to operate the Council so my rates reduce.
• I am aware the NPDC has twice as many staff per head of population as comparable and bigger cities. You must reduce your staff numbers, to reduce the amount I pay in rates.
• Why does the NPDC have so many more staff  than cities with bigger populations ? I want you to initiate a considerable reduction in operating costs with a significant reduction in staff numbers.
• The elected officials at the NPDC need to send a strong mandate to the staff at the Council that the number of staff needs to be reduced in line with other bigger cities.
• I want a say in which people and groups in New Plymouth get to pay zero rates through rates remissions. I want a consultation held about this process and who should receive remissions on their rates.
• I want a full review of all projects being done by the NPDC. I want as many costs as possible trimmed off all current projects which have signed contracts. I want excessive “gold-plated” costs removed. I want current projects without signed contracts mothballed where possible. I want all other projects which are not essential infrastructure removed from any council plans.
• I want you to break projects with contracts in to stages, deliver what is affordable now, and delay future stages wherever possible.
• I want a full review done of the Len Lye Centre and I want the costs to run Len Lye significantly reduced, or the Len Lye Centre closed, or mothballed.
• I am concerned that in 2027 the cost of payment for Water Rates will be on top of around what I am already paying in my total rates bill this year. I can’t afford to pay around another $1,500 a year for my combined NPDC and Water Company Rates. You MUST remove costs at the NPDC so that my rates will be affordable when the new Water Company starts charging for water rates.
• I do not authorise anyone at the NPDC to continue to increase the costs to operate the council. Focus fully on bringing the cost of rates down.

Once you have written what you want to say send an e-mail to:

enquiries@npdc.govt.nz

Or deliver your letter to reception at the NPDC building on Liardet Street.

• The Consultation closes on Wednesday 12^th August at midnight.

People, please get heavily involved in the Long Term Plan process this time around.

Share this message with everyone you know.

There are 37,500 ratepayers – people need to fill the Council inboxes with tons of feedback to make sure they hear your message and take action this year.

• Tell the NPDC they need to seriously reduce the costs to run the council.
• Tell them they need to reduce how many people they employ.
• Tell them the cost of running projects has to seriously reduce.
• Tell them they need to seriously reduce the amount people are paying in rates.

They need to do this before they find there is no one left in New Plymouth who can afford to pay the rates bills being sent out.

If you want to use the full Consultation process which is open on the NPDC website now, the link is here:

https://haveyoursay.npdc.govt.nz/shape-10-year-plan-our-district

 This has more information helping to prompt people’s feedback.

The Alliance has worked very hard to get open text boxes included in consultations, so you can say exactly what you want to. You don’t have to answer the question relating to each box – you can type what you want to type in any box.

There are also options to tick where you do not want an activity.

There are not many places that the serious issues to reduce the costs are mentioned, so type those in the free flow boxes if you want to.