2021/22 Annual Report adopted
Our 2021/22 Annual Report was adopted by Council on 13 December 2022. The full report and a summary report are available to view on our website here.
The Annual Report compares Council’s performance against the objectives, performance measures and budgets set in the Long Term Plan and Annual Plan for the year. It also gives details of the Council’s overall financial performance for the year together with its financial position as at 30 June 2022 along with other financial data and information.
A lot happened in the 2021/22 financial year, including:
- Completion of the new children’s bike park and half basketball court
- Near-completion of the new swimming pool, on budget and on time
- Significant progress on the second water trunk main between the Stratford water treatment plant and Stratford township
- Sealing work progressing on the historically unsealed stretch of State Highway 43 along with a suite of other safety improvements.
The 2021/22 financial year was the first year of Council’s 2021-2031 Long Term Plan.
This year saw the largest ever delivery of capital projects in the history of Stratford District Council. Despite the various challenges along the way, we managed to deliver 86% of the overall work programme, with the remainder rolled over into the following year for completion.
We finished the year with a net surplus of $7,777,000. Revenue was slightly below budget due to a reduction of fees and charges and MBIE funding being lower than what was budgeted. Expenditure shows slightly over budget due to increased depreciation, increased operational costs and higher interest rates.
The council-owned farm exceeded its production target and produced 154,000kg of milk solids. Combined with a higher than expected pay out, this created an operating profit of $291,000, of which $51,000 went towards subsidising general rates, and the remainder repaying farm debt and investing in new farm infrastructure.
Responses from our annual customer survey showed residents consider Stratford to be an attractive place to live (77% agreed), a safe place (77% agreed), and offering a healthy lifestyle (81% agreed). Residents were particularly impressed with the level of service in the Library (97% satisfied), Visitor Information Centre (96% satisfied) and our parks and walkways (92% satisfied). A higher number of non-financial performance measures than in previous years were not met. This was largely due to the impact of COVID-19 on activities as well as an exceptionally high numbers of building and resource consent applications.
