I am sure anyone reading this column will be aware of the huge rates increases that are facing councils across the country, unfortunately including ours. 

The costs that we cannot avoid, such as three waters upgrades the law says we must make and bridges reaching the end of their life, have limited ways outside of rates to be paid. 

To be precise, there are actually four ways for councils to meet their costs. 

One is through having a business, often a council controlled organisation, that brings income to the council. 

Waitaki District Council owned Whitestone Contracting is a good example. 

CODC doesn’t have anything like that at present, but finding income streams for council is something we are looking at moving forward. 

However, an investment in that space will require time and money, so let’s park that for now. 

That leaves three ways for councils to pay their bills. 

Rates, obviously, is another and a third way is debt, which can and is used to pay for generational capital projects, but which increase rates due to interest payments. 

The final way is asset sales, and you will, I am sure, have heard of many councils actively pursuing that option in these difficult times. 

Auckland City selling its airport shares is a good example.

Since its inception, your council has taken a view that the proceeds of asset sales should be spent in the ward that the asset comes from, and that the guidance on that comes from the community board concerned. 

The final decision, however has always been councils because, by law, boards cannot own property. 

If your council were ever to consider selling assets, the vast bulk is made up of bare land, with the majority of that bare land being in Cromwell.

Under the way we have always done things, council cannot consider selling any of its land to pay for infrastructure in our three waters or roading space, which are our major cost drivers. 

This means that under the way we have always done things, we currently only have rates or debt (which impacts on rates) open for consideration to meet the massive costs to come in those two big cost-driver areas.

This year is an LTP year, and LTP years are where the big questions get asked and answered. 

One of the questions that I believe needs to be asked of council and the community is whether the practice we have had since CODC came into existence is still fit for purpose, or whether council should be able to at least consider using asset sales to meet some of the cost drivers we are facing as a district across the district. 

It is going to be an interesting discussion.