Strategic LTP Planning Workshop

The Mayor of Christchurch Lianne Dalziel, City Councillors and the Council's new Executive Leadership Team have completed a two-day strategic planning workshop in relation to the Council's upcoming Long Term Plan (LTP).

Also attending was the newly announced Chief Executive designate Dr Karleen Edwards.

The purpose of the two-day workshop was to discuss the Council's overall strategic direction and work towards providing sufficient certainty about the Council's priorities to enable staff to start developing the LTP. This was with the assistance of an independent facilitator.

The LTP encompasses the period 2015-2025 and will be ready for an initial period of public consultation expected to begin in March next year.

"The LTP is the Council's primary strategic planning document," said Mayor Lianne Dalziel.

"When completed, the LTP will set out the Council's priorities for a ten-year period and will describe how the Council intends to achieve the priorities.

"This includes what services and projects will be delivered, to what standard and level of service and at what cost," said the Mayor.

"During the two-day workshop, Councillors had the opportunity to think ahead 30 years, and about the kind of city they would want Christchurch to be. This helped us think about what we would need to do now to enable that to happen.

"Over the next few months a lot of work will be needed to decide how the priorities can be taken into the LTP and at what period within the ten years of the plan.

"This work will be done in close partnership among Councillors, Community Boards and staff," said the Mayor.

The Local Government Act requires Councils to develop an LTP that includes community outcomes. These are what the Council aims to achieve to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural interests of the City.

Under recent changes to the Act, a Mayor is responsible for setting the direction for how those community outcomes are to be achieved.

The first day of the workshop was held on Friday at the Council and the second day was at the new Aranui Library, which was the first new community facility to be opened after the earthquakes.

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