Big, exciting year ahead for Ruapehu.

Fri 5 Jan 18

Ruapehu Mayor Don Cameron said that Council is looking forward to another big, exciting year ahead for Ruapehu as it looks to build on the momentum built up over the last few years.

In March we will be asking people to give us feedback on our new ten year Long Term Plan (LTP) for the 2018-2028 period, he said.

We feel that this is the most exciting, ambitious and yet challenging ten year strategic planning document Council has asked our ratepayers and other communities of interest to consider so far.

Since our last LTP in 2015 Council with the support of our ratepayers, regional partners and government have put in three years of hard work and investment that has transformed our thinking about our possibilities and created a platform on which we have the potential to put Ruapehu on a path to growth and prosperity.

This year's ten year 2018-2028 LTP is all about where we go from here.

The exciting aspect to this LTP is that the progress and successes since 2015 have provided a growing confidence and momentum that Ruapehu communities have picked-up on and made clear they want to see maintained.

Council believes that this confidence in Ruapehu's direction is well founded and we are urging people to engage with the LTP consultation process and continue to support Council to deliver the future we want for ourselves.

We are now seeing indications are that our normally resident population has stabilised and may even be on the increase.

The challenges are around deciding on our priorities and how fast we want to get there with the pace of our progress significantly dependent on what we believe we can afford.

Mayor Cameron noted that an added factor to the new LTP is that in addition to accommodating our own development aspirations it needs to take into account planning for large capital works programs that have arisen from changes to legislation notably in drinking water and wastewater.

Council will of course be actively working to get whatever financial support funding is available from government for these projects, he said.

Indications are that there will be funding support available however we are not sure when this will be announced.

In the meantime people should have confidence in Council's ability in this area with the total announced government financial support for Ruapehu projects now totalling over $5.2m over the last three years.

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