I know that many property owners in our district share my concerns about how quickly our levels of debt have risen during the last six years.
I am concerned that we have got to the point where our District Council owes $4,370 for each and every property that has to pay rates?
That’s the figure you get when you spread the $87 million debt in this years Draft Annual Plan across all rateable properties. It’s an increase of $2,694 per property since 2003-04 (when total debt was $33.7 m). By 2012-13, when debt is predicted to peak at $97m, it will have risen to a worrying $4,767.80 per property.
At a time of general global financial difficulty and uncertainty about the years ahead, many of us will be wondering how our district will be able to keep borrowing to pay interest on such large sums, let alone pay off meaningful amounts of principal. We have such a limited rating base, and very low population growth trends , and as well sadly, we feature towards the bottom of New Zealand’s family income statistics, so it’s a lot to ask of today’s citizens on fixed incomes and of future generations who choose to continue to live here.
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