River management funding review 2025

Our 2024-2034 Long-term Plan focused our activities on three groups: a healthy environment, resilient communities, and a thriving region. We reviewed our funding choices to support these outcomes, meaning that our funding is now regionally focused, recognising the benefits and risks to the whole economy, environment, and people. It is important that we regularly review how we fund our activities to ensure fairness and equity, efficiency, and futureproofing.

The Council believes that past approaches to river management are no longer in the region’s best interest. Southland’s rivers have been repeatedly tested during recent decades and have stood up well, but they are coming under increasing pressure due to more enduring and severe weather.

In the past, the prevailing belief was that those nearest the rivers benefitted from river maintenance because it protected their properties. Our roading and rail network is key to our economy. It provides the links for people to move around and to transport goods to fill our supermarket shelves, replenish hospital medical supplies, shift raw and produced products, move stock, enable services to operate efficiently and effectively.

The council is moving towards an integrated catchment management approach reflecting a mountains to the sea (ki uta ki tai) philosophy. All Southland ratepayers benefit from this type of approach; economically, socially, and culturally, and a healthy environment benefits all.

River management is one of four flood protection and control activities that are designed to maintain rivers and protect people, property, and livelihoods.

The purpose of river management work is the maintenance of channel capacity for efficient flood water movement which lowers the risk to the primary stop bank assets.

Effective river management is essential for protecting both individual properties and the maintenance of operations of regional infrastructure such as roads, bridges, airports, waste and water services and hospitals.

We are proposing a more equitable allocation of the costs of maintaining Southland’s rivers, taking a whole-of-region approach to protect everyone in Southland from the potentially severe consequences of adverse weather events affecting our rivers. This will increase the region’s resilience to flood risk and includes all those who conduct their business in Southland.

The cost of river management activity in 2024/25 is $3.4M and is currently funded by a 50% general rate (capital value) and 50% in 140 targeted rates (land value). We would not collect any more money from the proposed rate system changes as this would reallocate the costs of river management activity across all ratepayers. All ratepayers would now contribute, with some paying more and others paying less due to this reallocation. What is proposed aligns with the Council’s priority of maintaining a socially and economically resilient region that is spared the full impacts of flooding and can recover quickly. It would provide for greater flexibility of investment and inclusion of all the region as contributors to fund investment where it is needed most.