Regional Council asking for help with Long Term Plan

18 February 2015

Bay of Plenty Regional Council is releasing its plans for the next 10 years and is calling for residents’ input.

The Council’s Long Term Plan 2015-2025 will be finalised in June, and will set out key challenges for the Bay of Plenty and how they will be tackled. The Council’s consultation document Thriving Together, which summarises the issues, has been officially notified and is now open for submissions from 20 February until 4pm on 20 March.

Regional Council Chairman Doug Leeder said the region was facing challenges.

“We need residents’ help to find out what’s most important to them, and where we should spend a limited amount of money over the next 10 years,” he said.

“We’ve agreed on five key community outcomes that we want for our region – water quality and quantity, environmental protection, resilience and safety, regional collaboration and leadership and economic development.

“We want to know what people think about our plans because our future depends on it. Our consultation document identifies important choices for our communities.”

“We need to consider changes to the work local government does, increasing costs of new infrastructure for areas losing population, changes to public transport demands and how we manage some large projects which will be ready to go at the same time,” Mr Leeder said.

The consultation document will be available from libraries, any Regional Council office and online at www.boprc.govt.nz/longtermplan

A number of meetings for interested groups such as other councils, community boards and Chambers of Commerce to find out more about the plan will be held over the next few weeks.

Anyone can make a submission online or by post before 20 March, and hearings will be held throughout the region in April.

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