Council will meet about plan changes

The Whanganui District Council will meet in extraordinary session next Tuesday to adopt two parts of its 2016-17 Annual Plan.

It follows last week's milestone meeting when the council finally decided to go ahead with the build of a new wastewater treatment plant for the city.

But, in clearing the way for the project to move, staff will have to make changes to supporting information for the Annual Plan as well as the consultation documents that go with it.

Those two issues have been held over from the March 9 meeting, but it's the implications of the decision to rebuild the treatment plant that need tweaking

The revisions will also need to be written into the 2015-25 10-Year Plan.

No start date has been set for construction of the new plant, with a number of key issues still to be resolved.

These include getting a new short-term consent to discharge waste through the South Beach outfall.

That hearing is set down for Monday and Tuesday next week.

Next up will be deciding how the city will fund the $39 million project.

The work will be loan funded, but that will have a substantial impact on rates. And the key influence on the rates bill will be how much the city's wet industries are charged to discharge their waste into the system.

The council will meet at a later date to consider the funding options.