A year focussed on core priorities, a small surplus and lower than forecast debt - despite economic headwinds - are the key takeaways from Central Hawke’s Bay District Council’s Annual Report 2024/25.

The independently audited Annual Report, adopted at Council’s final meeting of the triennium is notable for Council’s largest ever capital and Recovery programme of $35m.

It outlined that 95% of Council’s expenditure was on its core work; $57m of that was spent on the three priorities of roading, three waters and recovery, with 56% of this work funded by central Government.

The report showed the major progress made towards recovery – both in community resilience and roading. Council used $527k of external funding developing Civil Defence Community Hubs. A further $19.8m from Government funded Recovery road repairs, reducing the number of roads still closed from Cyclone Gabrielle to just five, from the initial 70.

“The district should be proud of where we have landed and what has been achieved in just two years since Cyclone Gabrielle, particularly on the back of extraordinary cost pressures,” Central Hawke’s Bay District Council Chief Executive Doug Tate said.

“Thankfully, this year of delivery has been buoyed in large by eternal funding, especially from Government, this meant we could do such a a large chunk of Recovery work.”

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A continued focus on long standing underinvestment in water services – drinking water, wastewater and stormwater - was a highlight with pipeline renewals on the most critical network areas achieved and new levels of investment in stormwater maintenance also achieved for the first time in decades.

Organisational reductions were also achieved, additional to the $1.5m of operational savings set in the June 2024 budget.

During the year, Council had two rounds of redundancies to right-size the business for now and into the future. It also made other changes such as bringing consultants in-house, reducing traffic management, and improving contract management.

“We’ve gone to the community for its views on the tough calls we’re having to make. We went back to the drawing board and looked for ways to address people’s concerns – and continued our focus on ensuring the organisation is right sized and delivering on the community’s priorities,” Tate said.

The Annual Report 2024/2025 is available on Councils website shortly.

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