$11m Repair Bill Estimated For Tasman Council

Saturday, 13 September 2025, 2:35 pm
Article: Max Frethey - Local Democracy Reporter

The repair bill for Tasman District Council after the June and July floods is almost $48 million, but it might not even need to cover a quarter of that cost. 

Current estimates put the council’s damages at around $47.9m, but external funding sources – such as insurance payouts or Government contributions – are forecast to provide more than 75% of that total cost, leaving the organisation with a final estimated bill of $11.2m. 

The bulk of the costs affect the district’s rivers and roads, respectively costing the council an estimated $20m and $19.3m. 

But funding of $15m is expected to be received for rivers recovery, while roading should see around $15.7m covered by other funders – principally the New Zealand Transport Agency which is covering 81% of their recovery cost. 

Other areas of significant cost, such as the $3.1m of damages to the region’s Great Taste Trail – one of the country’s Great Rides – and costs to solid waste activities were hoped to be entirely covered by other parties. 

Areas where the council did not expect to receive any financial assistance included three waters infrastructure and parks and reserves, leaving the council to cover their respective repair bills of $900,000 and $400,000 itself. 

Mayor Tim King said it was “really pleasing” to see the amount of support Tasman had received after being presented with the figures during a Thursday meeting, but he emphasised the costs and aid were still just estimates at this stage. 

The council had not been left with “astronomically enormous” bills, he said. 

“It’s not a small figure, but it isn’t hundreds of millions of dollars as we have seen in Marlborough, it’s not as big as the impact on Nelson [in August 2022], and it’s certainly nothing compared to the Cyclone Gabrielle kind of figures.” 

Tasman didn’t lose any bridge structures during the two storms, King added, which could have otherwise increased the cost to the district substantially. 

Councillor Kit Maling highlighted that while the council assets and the district's urban areas had avoided the worst of the damage, rural Tasman had been “devastated”. 

“For our ratepayers that are going to have to pay for this, the impact is not as great as on our rural people,” he said.

“It will take years for some of these places to recover.” 

Finance strategy and planning manager Matthew McGlinchey said most of the recovery works would be paid for this financial year through borrowing. 

“The decision that council will face when we come back with an annual plan… is how quickly we might want to pay off this additional cost, whether it’s one year, five years, etcetera.” 

Rob Smith, the council’s group manager for environmental science, added that the “scary numbers” being spent on river works were largely funded through targeted rates, potentially raising future considerations about how that work was funded. 

The exact impact of the storms on the council’s insurance premiums likely won’t be known for another year, council officers added. 

Tasman’s official recovery period was meant to end on Thursday but, that same day, Mayor Tim King also formally extended the period for a second time so that recovery transition powers can continue to be used until 9 October. 

Separately, a report commissioned by the Nelson Regional Development Agency has found that the two storms will have an impact of more than $260m on the regional economy. 

The next year was likely to see almost $50m of potential lost GDP from lower production and demand, with losses of $25m in forestry, $11m in horticulture, $6m in both livestock and tourism, and $400,000 in aquaculture. 

-Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air

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