Council to discuss capital investment priorities for decade ahead
Work on Invercargill City Council’s next Long-term Plan is well underway, with elected members set to confirm an interim position on the city’s capital infrastructure programme for the decade ahead at a meeting next week.
Councillors will discuss Council’s interim Long-term Plan (LTP) 2027-2037 non-waters Capital Programme at a meeting on Monday 27 July. That body of work would also feed into the infrastructure strategy Council was required to develop for 2027 – 2057.
Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell said the interim position Council ultimately opted to take would not represent all of the capital projects, or investment, it intended to proceed with. Rather, the interim position would represent a starting point for Council to develop further before the LTP was released for public consultation in March next year.
Council had spent the last six months preparing for the development of the LTP in earnest. Early engagement initiatives, including the Wee Delights campaign – which called for the community to submit ideas for small-scale projects, that would make a big difference to their neighbourhoods – and a series of workshops held with external stakeholders earlier in the year had played an important role in steering the direction of work so far, Campbell said.
“The capital programme is extraordinarily ambitious, and the reality is that the need to consider affordability as we start to think about what projects or investments will deliver the best outcomes for our community,” he said.
“We will not be able to do everything up for discussion around the Council table next week. This is an opportunity for Councillors to identify those projects we think represent the right areas to invest within, so that we can go out to our community with a realistic and considered approach towards our long-term capital expenditure and ultimately get their feedback on what they see as the key strategic priorities for Invercargill.”
Workshops had explored themes including elderly persons housing, social wellbeing, and climate resilience.
The interim capital programme that would be presented at Council next week included a number of significant projects for elected members to consider for inclusion in the LTP.
Potential capital projects on the horizon included the repair and revitalisation of Rugby Park as an outdoor venue ($18 million capital expenditure, between 2027 – 2030), the procurement of new festive lights for Christmas and Matariki ($1 million capital expenditure, 2030/2031, and 2035/2036), the upgrade of Kelvin and Esk streets as the third phase of the City Streets project ($13.6 million capital expenditure, 2030 – 2032), disability access roading improvements throughout the city (an average of $100,000 per year, between 2027 - 2030), the fit-out of new corporate accommodation ($6 million in capital expenditure, between 2027 – 2032), scoping for an additional pool at Splash Palace ($155,000, between 2027 – 2028) and proposed renewals ($3 million, 2033 – 2034), and the improvement of bus shelters across the city’s public transport network ($100,000, between 2028 – 2030).
The interim position accounted for a non-waters core renewals programme of $270 million across the next 10 years, and $646 million between 2027 and 2057.
Interim waters-related capital expenditure proposed for the same time periods were $575 million and $1 billion, respectively.
Council Group Manager Finance and Assurance Patricia Christie said the discussion would give elected members the chance to set the direction of Council’s upcoming capital programme for the LTP, before further phasing work was developed and refinements to its key priorities were agreed upon.
“Establishing an interim position for our capital programme allows us to start pulling together all of the pieces early in the process. Councillors will have the opportunity to revisit this, once the last building blocks have been determined, to ensure the proposed capital programme they move forward with aligns with the key strategies, priorities, and assumptions they will finalise later this year,” she said.
Although the shape of local government faced uncertainty, through the parallel processes of Government’s Head Start initiative – which sought to amalgamate local bodies throughout the country – and the Local Government Commission’s reorganisation review of Councils in Southland, Council still needed to prepare its own LTP for the decade ahead, she said.
The public would get to have its say on the draft LTP during a formal public consultation process early next year, with the final plan scheduled to be adopted by Council in June.
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