Westland District Council adopted the Annual Plan 2019/20 at the June council meeting. Mayor Bruce Smith said “Council was really pleased to hear and read the submissions earlier in the month. We had 162 written submissions to the draft Annual Plan, which shows that the community is interested in what we plan to do this year.”

Key changes to the Long Term Plan adopted by Council include working with Westland Milk Products on an Ocean Outfall Pipeline to be built alongside the Hokitika wastewater treatment plant, restructuring dog registration fees, and creating a separate community rate zone for Bruce Bay. Council also recommended providing a $5000 grant to Minerals West Coast during the consultation hearings.

“Council has tried to ensure that the rates increase is a low as possible but still gets the core services done. Because of rising costs this means that we couldn’t keep it as low as we would have liked but we are still within the 5% affordability benchmark that we consulted on in the Long Term Plan”, reported Mayor Smith.

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