News

Households along the Spotswood end of Devon Street West got their letters this week to let them know cycleway “separators” will start being installed in early April. These are little concrete barriers to make sure cars don’t drive on to the cycleways.
(Click on the blue heading above to read the story).

Following on from the story about the Devon Street West "Cycleway Separators", there is an "instruction manual" video with the news item.
(Click on the blue heading above to find out more).

They are looking for Pulse Checkers.

"What are the Pulse Checkers?
Always on the pulse, our team of Pulse Checkers are who we reach out to when we need to get a view on our services, activities, or plans. They are our go-to group of ratepayers and residents when we want to understand what people think about what we do at NPDC. They do this by answering questionnaires, taking part in focus groups, or being interviewed."

Here’s your opportunity to tell them you don’t agree (click on the link below)

We posted recently that the Western Bay of Plenty Council has pulled out of LGNZ as have 6 other Councils in NZ in recent months.

We had been looking at this topic ourselves and whether it’s a good thing for New Plymouth to be a member of LGNZ.

Click on the blue heading above to find out more.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council is the latest council to leave national advocacy body Local Government New Zealand.

There were claims LGNZ had become “extremely political”, had swung “far left” and lacked professionalism.

Other councils that have left LGNZ include Christchurch City, Auckland, West Coast Regional, Grey, Kaipara and Westland District.

Watch this space as we have also been looking at LGNZ from a New Plymouth perspective and will have more information to share soon.

Click on the link to read more about Western Bay of Plenty.

The Taxpayers Union has been running a monthly poll over the last 2 years and have ranked the responses from all the regions about their Mayors and how well they are doing.

Our current Mayor Neil Holdom has not been rated very highly.

Click on this link to see the result:

An interesting Daily News item last week featuring Bryan Vickery and the remuneration of Councillors.

(Click on the blue heading above to read the story).

One of the comments made this week about the current debt at the NPDC suggested it would be interesting to compare the level of Debt in 2004 – when the PIF fund was created – with the level of debt now in 2024.

The comment suggested it would be good to compare Apples with Apples.

Click on the blue heading above to read how things have changed in the last 20 years.

This is a copy of a recent post from Murray Chong – an NPDC Councillor.

2 weeks ago I tried to move a motion (at a Council meeting) to save money on our rate rises by reducing what money we give the LLC by 50%, as just this one motion would have been the biggest reduction on our rate rises (2% less).

Click on the blue heading above to read the rest of the story.

Does the following sound like you, or someone you know ?

Have you ever thought about trying to fix what is going on at the NPDC ?

Do you watch all the spending on things we as ratepayers know we don’t need, and want to do something about that ?

Do you feel the Council doesn’t listen to what the Community has to say ?

Have you thought I’d really like to stop Yes being said at every Council meeting, and the spending of even more money that keeps increasing our rates and debt ?

Do you know someone who has said these things to you ? Do you know someone who wants to bring about change at the NPDC ?

E-mail us, or ask the people you think may be interested to email us.

We are looking at hosting a meeting for potential candidates, to help people decide if running for council is for them.

Do you, or someone you know, want to make a difference in the 2025 New Plymouth Election ?

Registrations close on 1st August 2025 to be a candidate this year. This is the time to be deciding if you want to get involved.

New Plymouth badly needs people who will say No, we are NOT going to keep spending ratepayers’ money on more nice to have things.

We badly need people who will say Yes to just basic infrastructure and services, and lower rates and lower debt.

Is that you, or someone you know ?

Please get in touch to meet other like minded people, to help you decide if you’d like to run in this year’s election, and find out what’s involved to do that.

E-mail : ratepayersnp@gmail.com

Or, Phone Kevin Moratti: 0274 246 868

We recently featured on the front page of the Daily News with closing comments about reducing debt at the NPDC.

We’ve also recently emailed you about the situation with Debt at the Waitaki Council in the South Island, where their debt has grown substantially in the last few years – in a similar way to our own region.

This is a story about the NPDC Debt. (Click on the heading above in blue to read the story).

This is a story about the Devon St West Cycleway. Who didn’t want it, who didn’t fund it, how it went ahead anyway, which councillors voted for it, and a presentation to the NPDC about the flow on effects of their decision.

(Click on the blue heading above to read the story)

You may recall we said we would come back to the information in the OIA we did about recycling the building materials from the removal of the Public Race Stand, as part of the Sports Hub project.

(Click on the blue heading above to read the Story).

You may remember back in November last year we ran a few stories about the $1.2M Steps to go in at Fitzroy Beach in 2025.
There was an update about the Steps in the Daily News yesterday.

(Click on the blue heading above to view the story).

You may remember we encouraged our supporters to contact the council about the removal of the Race Stand, which they did, and for those who sent an e-mail, the Mayor (and his spin doctors) wrote back. We as the Alliance then wrote to the Council, and the Mayor wrote back to us.

Both the reply to us, and our supporters, had some bold statements and raised some questions for us, so we did a little bit of Roving Reporting and a few OIA’s.

Click on the heading above to see the full story.

We see Gareth Green proudly announcing last week the rates increase this year has been brought down by a whole 0.4% - to what he states as a 9.9% increase for 2025.

First comment we’d make – this is more than 4 times the rate of inflation – so not sure how proud the NPDC should be of this figure.

Second comment we’d make – would this be an average increase of 9.9% ? So where people last year ended up with 14% and 19% increases with their rates – as they were at the top end of the average increases – what might their top end of the average increase be this year ? 13% and 18% ? People will find out when their rates bill arrives in July.

Gareth considers 0.4% to be rates “screwed down and really hard work”.

We’re pretty sure a lot of businesses in New Plymouth have been doing some really hard work on reducing their costs by a lot more than 0.4% to keep up with the rising costs of doing business.

And we’re pretty sure there are a lot of New Plymouth households with a lot more that 0.4% in increased costs who have a lot less income to go around.

We do hope the NPDC are still thinking really hard about how the rates increases can be brought down much closer to the normal rate of inflation.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has warned Councils that Central Government is considering putting a cap on rate increases as some countries have done overseas.

Imagine knowing as a ratepayer what to allow for as a maximum rate increase each year, one that sits around the amount of inflation - at the moment just 2.2% - not the 19.45% some ratepayers experienced last year.

Imagine a Council not being able to increase rates based on whims individual Councillors have in Long Term Plans, and that they actually have to concentrate on living within an operating budget that has a capped amount it can increase by.

Imagine they have to deliver the infrastructure the city needs first, and if anything is left over from that, then other nice to have projects could be considered.

The Council would start to live in a world (like we do) that they need to keep within their budget and look at shedding unnecessary costs.

Imagine living in a world where ratepayers are not afraid of what might be in the next Long Term Plan, where the estimated budget will blow out, where rates increases will have to cover the extra costs due to inadequate budget preparation.

Imagine that we wouldn’t be ignored when saying no with Long Term Plans, as the Council wouldn’t have the capacity to put projects that aren’t supported by the community in the Long Term Plans in the first place, as the costs would go over the rate of inflation.

It is just possible that the tap of the NPDC money tree would be switched off.

Imagine …

We start 2025 with plans heading into an election in October, and plans to reach a lot of people in the District. Our goal is to help people understand why it is so important who they vote for this year.

As a totally self-funded organisation, getting these messages out to everyone needs fundraising to help us on our way.

Just so you have an idea of why we are asking, the following are the types of things we need to cover the costs for:

$625 - for our website build last year and hosting costs for a year.
$460 - for thousands of contact cards to hand out to people.
$3000 - to print thousands of flyers to deliver before the election.
$1,000 - to hire meeting rooms for public meetings.
$2,700 - to advertise pre-election messages across town.

Over the next few months we need to raise close to $8,000 to achieve what we are setting out to do.

We have had some very generous help with discounts from local businesses, but we would appreciate any donations our supporters can also offer towards these costs.

A small amount regularly would be really helpful, but all donations of any amount would be very much appreciated.

Our bank account details are:

New Plymouth Ratepayers Alliance

15 3943 0039254 00

Please put your name and the word “Donation” as a reference.

Thank you for your support and interest in our organisation.

One of our roving reporters saw the notice from the NPDC that water restrictions had come in again recently.

It was a warm and muggy day and thoughts went to the kids at the new Waterpark and which day affected their use of the Waterpark – the odds day or the evens day. That’s a bit of a tongue in cheek statement of course. The people who pay the bills for water have the restriction’s, but the restrictions don’t apply to everyone in New Plymouth these days.

This roving reporter hadn’t seen the Waterpark so went to see how water was being used in the middle of restrictions with this new facility.

Of course the kids and their families were having a fantastic time, that has been the whole point of the park.

But how does this fit with messages by our Council that we must conserve water at home ?

The ratepayers and renters who foot the bill must go without every second day, even if they are relying on water to grow food to feed themselves. Restricted at home, but at a Council approved facility water can be used with abandon ?

The NPDC is likely to tell us they have all sorts of conservation methods with this use of water, you may have those methods at home too, but there are no restrictions on water use when the Council decides it’s OK, but restrictions on you at home instead.

It was ironic to notice in the changing world we live in, right next to the Waterpark is an ocean full of 100% free water. In this particular part of New Plymouth at low tide there are rock pools full of safe cool water for kids to access too.

But we live in a world where we don’t teach our kids how to be safe around water anymore, like school kids used to get taught in previous generations, so now we need to set up a Waterpark right next to the free ocean water, to keep our kids safe.

Plenty of people along the streets by the Waterpark, who have real trouble with water restrictions and droughts every year, made submissions to the NPDC about using water for fun at the expense of home owners who don’t have access to enough in Summer.

But the decision has been made, having fun is a better decision for our Council, than making sure ratepayers and renters have access to water every day in Summer too.

It was really good to see a lot of kids and their families enjoying the water at the park. We’re not trying to suggest for a minute that shouldn’t be happening.

It’s just such a shame that the people who foot the bill for the water in New Plymouth, the ratepayers and the renters, that they don’t have a Council who makes sure there is plenty of access to water with the growing population in New Plymouth. This is one of those basic services our Council is here to provide for us.

Don’t know about anyone else but there does seem to be a tonne of rain that lands over New Plymouth every year. It would be really nice if Long Term Plans could include things like capturing more rainfall and making sure there is plenty of water for everyone to enjoy, including the people who pay the rates bills.

We’ve attached a flyer which tells people a little bit about who we are (click on View PDF at the bottom).

If you have access to a printer, would you like to print this off, cut between the contact info tags at the bottom, and take this to places where you spend your time.

If people like the message, they can tear off a tag at the bottom, so they can visit our website or Facebook page.

The places to leave the flyers might be the gym, hobby classes, exercise classes, businesses where you shop, family gatherings, coffees with friends, your workplace (check first with your boss), anywhere you might be comfortable to tell people about our group.

Please always ask permission of the property owner at any place you would like to leave the flyers.

This will really help to spread the word, if you are comfortable to help us out with this.

Wow - Over 21,500 views on Facebook, and over 400 visits to our Website, in the last 5 days.

Did you also send your comments to the NPDC about their new plan with the removal of the Race Stand ?

We are so pleasantly surprised that our story has resonated with so many people.

And very importantly, people have been contacting the NPDC and telling them they do not like the changed plan for the Community Hub, which has not been consulted about, which removes the public race stand.

o Have you got the time to make contact with the NPDC if you haven’t already ?
o Have you been brave enough to tell them you don’t agree ?
o Do you think we should tell the NPDC this project should be stopped ?

A supporter this week told us they have emailed the New Plymouth MP and The Minister for Local Government to ask for the demolition of the Race Stand to be stopped until the NPDC actually consults on the new plan
• Which has completely removed the turf phase of the project, and
• Now has just one building and no Public Race stand, and
• Costs more than the original consultation, which had 2 phases to it, and lots of facilities for the kids


Just a reminder of how you can make contact with the NPDC:

• Email the council at enquiries@npdc.govt.nz

• Post a message on their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/NewPlymouthDistrictCouncil/

• Email the Mayor, The Councillors, The CEO, and the Executive Leadership Team (Just copy the list below and paste that into the address line of a new e-mail).


If you are new to giving your opinion to the Council, and are not yet brave enough to use your full name, use just your first name in these ways:

• Ring the Council call centre on 759-6060 and tell them you do not support them starting on the Sports Hub project. When they ask for all your details, politely tell them you are only giving your first name, and their job as a council employee is to take your complaint and pass it on to the elected Mayor, Councillors and CEO.

• Write a note, put just your first name on it and hand deliver it in an envelope to reception at the NPDC.


What types of things might you say to the NPDC ?

• I do not support the Tuparikino Active Community Hub project and I want it stopped.

• I do not want the NPDC to borrow $50 million in new debt for a 6 court sports building and carpark.

• I do not want the Public Race Stand removed from the racing club area.

• Why is the NPDC demolishing a well used building and filling up Landfill with waste ? I do not want this project to start.

• The NPDC have misled the New Plymouth public about what will be delivered with this project and I do not support you going ahead with it.

• What was in the 2021 Long Term Plan with a $40 million budget is a lot more extensive than what you are now proposing to build in 2025 for $50 million. What you are now building is not the plan you received submissions for in 2021. You have misrepresented the original plan to the New Plymouth public and I want this project stopped.


The Council email addresses:

Council
neil.holdom@npdc.govt.nz
amanda.clintongohdes@npdc.govt.nz
anneka.carlson@npdc.govt.nz
bali.haque@npdc.govt.nz
bryan.vickery@npdc.govt.nz
david.bublitz@npdc.govt.nz
dinnie.moeahu@npdc.govt.nz
gordon.brown@npdc.govt.nz
harry.duynhoven@npdc.govt.nz
marie.pearce@npdc.govt.nz
max.brough@npdc.govt.nz
murray.chong@npdc.govt.nz
sam.bennett@npdc.govt.nz
tewaka.mcleod@npdc.govt.nz

Executive Team
gareth.green@npdc.govt.nz
jacqueline.baker@npdc.govt.nz
bernie.odonnell@npdc.govt.nz
helena.williams@npdc.govt.nz
sarah.downs@npdc.govt.nz
kathryn.scown@npdc.govt.nz


Remember to send us an email if you contact the Council, so we can remind the Council how many people don’t agree with this project going ahead.
Our e-mail address is:
ratepayersnp@gmail.com


Please also tell all your friends and family about this updated proposal and ask them to contact the NPDC if they are also not happy with what is now being proposed.

Thanks so much for your interest and support.