Kāpiti Coast District Council’s Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2020 has been adopted by Councillors and published on its website.

The annual report is a legislative requirement that sets out progress made by Council during the previous financial year and its overall delivery and performance.

Kāpiti Coast Mayor K Gurunathan says this report is particularly significant because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic which dominated the last four months of the reporting year.

“I am very proud of the way our community responded to this unprecedented challenge.

“The impacts have been particularly hard felt in our most vulnerable communities and it’s clear that these impacts are not easily resolved so we will need to continue to pull together.

“I would like to acknowledge the efforts of elected members who, despite being a relatively new Council, responded quickly when the seriousness of the pandemic became clear.

“The situation meant we had to operate in a different way to progress our work programme and I was proud of our constructive and unified approach.

“I also want to express my gratitude to all the staff of the Council who moved swiftly to keep our community safe, set up services to support those most vulnerable and maintained services and facilities as much as national guidelines allowed,” Mayor Gurunathan says.

Kāpiti Coast District Council Chief Executive Wayne Maxwell says it’s been a challenging 12 months but there is still much to celebrate.

“Despite the pandemic, we delivered most of our planned projects and are on track to complete the main work we have planned for the first three years of the long term plan.

“We are also on track with our financial strategy to balance capital spending, rates income and borrowing.

“I was pleased to see our residents’ satisfaction with Council services remains high at 80%.

“We have some good feedback from there and alongside recommendations from the Independent Organisational Review have a good basis from which to further improve.

“Despite a somewhat uncertain future I am very confident we are well placed to achieve the outcomes agreed in the current long term plan,” Mr Maxwell says.

Key achievements for the year included:

· Improving drinking water across the district and upgrading stormwater to protect homes from flooding

· Successfully trialling new infrared camera drone technology to locate hard to find leaks

· Holding the Takutai Kāpiti: Climate Change and Our Coast summit

· Confirmation of our credit rating outlook of AA by Standard & Poor’s

· Progressing town centre projects in Paraparaumu including the widening of Kāpiti Road

· Refreshing our economic development strategy with our iwi partners and business stakeholders and establishing an independent governance group

· Upgrading four playgrounds based on community input

· Managing the local body elections and induction of new members

· Completing a comprehensive upgrade to our animal management shelter

· Responding through the various Alert Levels to national Ministry of Health guidelines as they applied to our staff, community and services

· Arranging a range of support options for rates and other payments for residents, ratepayers and businesses financially impacted by COVID-19

· Earning top spot in Toitū Envirocare’s list of carbon reducers for 2020

· Winning the National Lifeguard Championships

· Opening the Te Raukura ki Kāpiti Performing Arts Centre

· Holding the inaugural ‘Movies in the Park’ and ‘Super Schools’ events.

You can read the Annual Report for 2019/20 here. 

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