We have to balance our business-as-usual core services with major projects and an enormous amount of recovery work.

This 3 Year Plan faces the harsh reality of a $1.1 billion recovery bill for our infrastructure alone. That’s mostly for damage to our local roading network and the clean-up of large wood debris.

Every service we deliver to our community has in some way been affected by the cyclones – from our parks and reserves, cemeteries, public toilets, walkways, boat ramps and playgrounds to our 3 waters.

We also have to increase flood protection and factor in voluntary buyout of damaged homes and lifting homes in flood risk areas under the government’s Future of Severely Affected Land (FOSAL) framework.

We’ve received government funding of $204m towards helping us fix and repair, but to recover back to what we previously had means there’s a lot we can’t afford to do.

As we begin the healing journey for Tairāwhiti, we know costs, resources and the need to keep rates as low as possible will affect our ability to build back stronger.

We must focus on fixing what’s broken and reinstate critical infrastructure.

Inflation and rising interest rates pose significant hurdles for our 3YP, while the scale and cost of work post cyclones continues to stretch our already limited resources.

There's more work can we can do

As we enter the next 3 years we know there's more to do than we can achieve with the resources available.

Like many other cyclone-affected councils this billion-dollar repair bill is one no community wants.

The workload created by recovery not only impacts our budgets, but places a strain on contractors, who are limited by their capacity to deliver more.

Rising costs

We've been impacted by rising interest rates and inflation which now seriously affects our ability to keep rates down.

Higher all-round expenses and not receiving dividends for 3 years from Gisborne Holdings Limited (GHL) means we can no longer hold rising costs back from ratepayers.

Affordability stretched

We understand many are struggling which is why we've looked closely at what we need to do and what we can afford, alongside keeping the impact on ratepayers as low as possible.

We propose to delay any major projects that are not externally funded. We'll also introduce additional rate remissions to help property owners facing significant hardship.

In doing this we hope to support the current needs of our communities, without over-burdening future generations.

To ease the cost of recovery on our region, we continue to seek support from funding agencies.