Upper Hutt City Council has come in second place for rates increases this year, at 15.78%, this comes after Clutha District Council at 16.59%.

The lowest rates increase comes from Whanganui District Council which comes in at 2.20%

The average rates increase across the whole of New Zealand is at 8.39%

To read all the data, follow the link: https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/rates_dashboard_2025

As for how Whanganui met their 2.2% rate increase – replicated from Radio New Zealand

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Mayor Andrew Tripe says the low figure is the envy of the country and the payoff in a sustained drive to adjust how the council operates.

“[It] didn’t happen by accident – it’s the result of a deliberate strategy to keep costs under control,” Tripe said.

“Many of the savings are structural and will flow through to future years. We expect there will be opportunities to reduce the 2026/27 rates increase as well.”

In his first tilt at local government in 2022, Tripe’s successful campaign for the mayoralty included driving efficiencies to reduce the rates burden.

A six-point plan was developed early in the electoral term to reduce costs and ease reliance on rates.

As well as improving efficiency, the plan looked at reducing services, finding alternative funding for projects, identifying non-rates sources of revenue, and growing the population so there were more households to pitch in on rates.

“The plan has taken a while to get some traction, however the benefits of that approach are now starting to show,” Tripe said.

The savings drive led to works and services being deferred, scaled back or cut but Tripe said investment in infrastructure had been prioritised.

Variations to the long-term plan included Tripe’s push to ditch a planned food scrap collection, reducing rates by $1 million or about 1.5 percent, he said.

Council restructuring saved $1.2m a year.

For the full article, please read: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/566846/how-whanganui-achieved-lowest-rates-in-the-country

Source: Taxpayers’ Union / Radio New Zealand

A “thank you” to Derek for requesting that this article be put up on The Upper Hutt Connection.

15/07/25