Next week at Council 29 July 2025

Published on 23 July 2025

At next week’s meeting of the Waitaki District Council, the Mayor and Councillors will consider the following issues, published in the public agenda available here.

New Communication and Engagement Strategy and New Council Brand (pg. 36 – 118)

The new strategy maps out how our transformed council will better inform, listen to and work alongside the community – with a consistent approach to communications and engagement.

Council’s new brand has been developed in-house, and will be introduced on digital platforms and then at facilities and signage as they need to be replaced, at no additional cost.

Review of Dog By Law Changes (pg. 119 – 227)

Changes to dogs on-lead areas were introduced in December 2024 for an initial trial period, and consultation on these changes took place between February and July 2025.

Council will consider whether to make these changes permanent, and some wording changes to the By Law and Control Policy.

Exempt Council Controlled Organisations from the Local Government Act (pg. 251 -260)

Omarama Airfield has requested consideration of an exemption from the Local Government Act (2002). This would allow it to be exempt from the audit process, which is estimated at 17k in 2025, or around 20% of their revenue.

At the same time Council will consider a similar exemption for the Waitaki District Health Services group, whose audit fees are around 96k for 2025 – including disbursement and GST.

Council has also launched a new transformed way for the community to access meeting agendas and minutes, on its website.

This lists meetings, the agenda, any attachments, minutes and their attachments in one easy to scroll or search place. They can be viewed as HTML pages online, or downloaded as PDFs.

Council is also committed to releasing media updates like this one ahead of meetings, so the community is aware of the issues up for consideration by the Mayor and Councillors.

ENDS