Total Council asset value tops one billion dollars

Hurunui District Council officially adopted the 2025 Annual Report on Tuesday 2 December, with the revaluation of roading assets taking the total value of assets under Council control over one billion dollars.

Prepared by Council staff and audited by Audit New Zealand, the report is written each year to provide information to assist communities in assessing the performance of the Council. It is also a requirement of the Local Government Act 2002, for the Annual Report to be adopted by the Council by 31 October each year.

It was identified early in 2025 that adopting the Annual Report before the statutory deadline was going to be challenging with the finalisation of the Audit straddling the election period. This was further exacerbated by; some normally available resources being committed to the development of the Water Services Delivery Plan; implementation of a new finance system; and the timing of critical valuation work for the Roading Network.

In conjunction with the Mayor, CEO, the Chair and the Independent Member of the Audit and Risk Committee, the Chief Financial Officer deferred the Annual Report by five weeks. While the statutory deadline was breached, this fact was disclosed in the Annual Report.

Total revenue for the year was $65.2 million - $2.9 million down on budget due to a low level of development experienced during the year. This led to both development contributions and the amount of assets vested in Council by developers being significantly lower than anticipated.

Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa however recorded an operating surplus of $2.1 million, despite a challenging tourism market. While this figure was approximately $400,000 lower than budgeted, the result is favourable considering visitor numbers are still not at pre-COVID levels.

Operating expenditure was $72.6 million - $1.7 million greater than budget. Key drivers for this were: insurance, particularly increases to Professional Indemnity cover; and electricity costs associated with the supply of water to the district.

Mayor Marie Black was quick to acknowledge those involved in preparing the report. “There’s been a massive amount of work to complete this report, and although we have not met the statutory deadline, I am confident that the content will provide purposeful detail to the community, given it meets audit requirements for completeness.”

For a full breakdown of the report CLICK HERE