Planning and delivery
Setting our priorities
Council has finite resources. Recreation and sport funding comes from our residents, through rates and user charges. Committing to, and funding projects means weighing needs and priorities across all council functions, including providing water, wastewater, stormwater, solid waste, community facilities, and community services.
The Council must consider affordability and practice prudent financial management. This is done through the Council’s Long-term Plans, which are consulted on and agreed every three years. A Long-term Plan sets out the Council’s work programme, commitments and approves project funding.
The recreation and sports strategy will guide the project investigations and the development of Council’s Asset Management Plans. Asset Management Plans will review the performance of the parks, reserves, playgrounds, sportsgrounds and facilities networks against the principles in this strategy. They will identify gaps and improvement needs, and the options for addressing these. Asset management plans will identify individual projects and programmes, their expected benefits, costs, risks, recommended implementation timing and how they align with this strategy’s principles.
To ensure value for money, all significant investment must be supported by a robust business case that demonstrates all feasible options have been considered and shows that the preferred option will provide benefits that significantly outweigh the full costs (ie all costs over the whole life of the investment).
Long-term Plans (also Annual Plans) will provide the funding for the options identified by the Asset Management Plans – supported by public consultation.
Delivering this strategy
Delivering improved recreation and sports networks and forward plans for community recreation and sports assets will take some time. These are priority areas for investigation for the next Long-term Plan in 2024.
Business and asset managers will provide advice and identify investment options for:
- A programme of works to improve shade at playgrounds
- Considering shade cloths
- Considering examples from elsewhere, innovation and best practice, and resilience.
- A programme of works to provide more local hard surface play areas
- A programme of works to improve accessibility
- Including working with accessibility organisations and local groups, like Access Taupō
- A programme of planting and revegetation works that will also help achieve our climate change goals
- Including working with iwi/hapū
- Working with appropriate conservation and local groups, like Greening Taupō
- A programme of shared pathway improvements
- coordinating our transport and reserves asset management plans to achieve an integrated shared path network over time
- Increasing indoor court space, including considering the options of:
- expanding existing facilities
- building new facilities in partnership with other indoor sports organisations, like Taupō Squash Club
- Assessing the performance of lake-based recreation and sport as part
of a strategic sportsgrounds and facilities network, and what the needs, gaps,
investment and partnership options are
- including working with Iwi
- including accessibility elements
- Improving tennis courts and netball courts at Te Kapua Park (Tūrangi)
- An ice rink
- More skate parks
What does a good asset management plan look like?
Identify investment and service options that will deliver the strategy, including expected benefits, costs, risks and recommended implementation timing.
This includes an assessment of:
- The performance of recreation and sports network against the principles of this strategy to identify where improvements are needed
- Levels of use against capacity at both peak and non-peak times
- The cost of key assets and facilities relative to use to support value for money and cost comparisons
- Reserve holdings to identify low value land that could be planted, upgraded, or released.
- investment co-ordination
- other revenue and funding opportunities
- partnership opportunities
- level of funding from users
- maximising existing facilities before building new ones.
What does a good business case look like?
Council will undertake a strong business case process to ensure the value for money of new investment proposals, including due consideration of:
- investment co-ordination
- other revenue and funding opportunities
- partnership opportunities
- level of funding from users
- maximising existing facilities before building new ones.
