Lots of progress in a challenging year
Media release 4 November 2022
Lots of progress in a challenging year
The Council’s 2021-22 Annual Report and Annual Report Summary are now available and show lots of progress on projects and some delays, in what was a challenging year.
The audited reports review the Council’s achievements for the year, comparing them to the aims set out in the 2021-2031 Long-term Plan.
Chairman Nicol Horrell said it had been pleasing to deliver the outcomes expected by the community while honouring the Council’s commitment to a 5% rates increase for 2022/2023.
“The Council had worked extremely hard to reprioritise work and find efficiencies so it could keep its rates increase to 5%, which is very pleasing.”
It had been a challenging year due to the impacts of Covid-19, but essential services and attention to key priority areas had been maintained.
Chief executive Wilma Falconer said a great deal of progress was made on many projects, even those that weren’t able to be fully achieved.
“We continued to have a strong focus on our partnership work with Te Ao Mārama Inc [the environmental arm of Ngāi Tahu] to improve freshwater quality, which reached a milestone when the Regional Forum’s report of recommendations was received by the Council in July.
“This is a key step towards achieving haurora – the healthy resilience of our waterways – and Plan Change Tuatahi for the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan.”
The Council also had a record year of delivery for biodiversity and biosecurity work programmes, thanks to government funding. This included gathering data, pest control and active biodiversity management, each across tens of thousands of hectares, as well as the removal of 30 tonnes of the invasive marine weed Undaria from 25km of coastline.
Some other achievements this year were the establishment of the Climate Change Sub-committee; improvements in air quality with only one exceedance of the national environmental standards in Invercargill; and some good progress, but also some delays with our climate resilience flood protection infrastructure projects due to major changes in the construction industry, including labour shortages and rising costs.
The Council was committed to getting its climate resilience projects back on schedule in the year ahead and to continue rising to the challenges ahead.
The 2021-22 Annual Report and Annual Report Summary are available on the Environment Southland website.
