Top 5 Issues for Our Future
There are five issues we think are important to Wellingtonians. We have set out what we plan to do to address these in our draft Long Term Plan.
We'd like to hear your views on whether you think these should be a focus for the future and what you think of these projects. Our areas of focus are:
City resilience
We see improving the resilience of our city's infrastructure as a priority. Some of the things we want to do are:
- increase the resilience of our water network, including creating a new reservoir to serve Wellington Hospital and the inner city in an emergency ($15.5 million)
- earthquake strengthening Council buildings ($47.8 million) and relocating Council operations while the civic offices are strengthened ($5 million)
- help building owners to access finance and resources to strengthen buildings ($1.5 million) and provide heritage grants ($1 million).
Growing our economy and jobs
We have the opportunity to respond to a challenging economic environment by focusing on activities that attract businesses to Wellington and raise Wellington's presence internationally. Some initiatives we have planned:
- funding a programme in partnership with other organisations to attract investment and new business to Wellington ($1 million next year and $1.9 million annually in later years) and continuing an Australian marketing campaign to promote our city ($2.4 million)
- hosting The Hobbit premier this year ($1.1 million) and games as part of the FIFA Under 20 Men's football Championships in 2015 ($2.5 million)
- continuing to fund Te Papa at a reduced level ($1 million annually)
- funding alternative venues while the Town Hall is earthquake strengthened ($4 million).
Transport
Continuing investment in our transport network - which includes our roads, cycleways and walkways - is a priority for our communities. We plan to:
- strengthen and rebuild many of the older tunnels and bridges in our city so that they can withstand earthquakes and higher traffic loads ($12.7 million)
- build new retaining walls to reduce the risk of slips ($21.6 million)
- improve safety at black-spot crash locations ($8.5 million)
- improve the roading network in Johnsonville ($7.1 million)
- invest in cycleways ($7.7 million).
A place where people choose to live
We have a number of projects planned to make sure Wellington remains a great place to live, work and visit. These include:
- improvements to public spaces in the city centre - including the development of a new park ($10.7 milion)
- improvements to Wellington's waterfront (funded from the sale of property)
- upgrading a number of community centres ($6.3million) and continuing to develop artificial sportsfields ($5.2 million, of which $800,000 is funded by the community).
Balance our budget
We are facing significant financial pressures because of the need to fund earthquake strengthening work, contribute to leaky building financial assistance packages and meet the rising costs of owning assets. To manage these pressures we plan to:
- reduce our asset replacement budget over the next 10 years
- make savings where possible now
- have our Financial Sustainability Working Party look at how much we spend on asset replacement and whether this can be reduced, alternative options for delivering services and potential opportunities to generate income
- look at options to work smarter - including working in partnership with other councils to reduce costs
- increase some fees and charges so that people who benefit from a service pay a fair share of the cost.
For more information and to have your say, see: