Meridian says rate costly

Meridian Energy says if the Waitaki District Council’s proposed revenue and finance policy goes ahead unchanged its roading rate contribution to the district could increase by 110%.

Because the company has assets worth about $726 million in the district, under the council’s proposed changes in its 2018-28 draft long-term plan its roading rate contribution over the next three years would increase from $306,000 to $642,000, Meridian Energy statutory and compliance strategy manager Andrew Feierabend said. 

He could not attend this week’s public hearings in Oamaru after his travel plans were disrupted by fog. But in a written statement in lieu of his appearance, provided to the council on Tuesday, he requested the targeted roading rate for hydrogeneration facilities to be maintained at 5%.

"The effect of this would see Meridian’s contribution to the roading network of the district increase by 16% over the next three years, which is consistent with the increased expenditure on the network over the next three years," he wrote.

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz

Comments

Around 1990-ish, Waitaki District Council found a solution for rating that Meridian's predecessor could live with. A nearby Council was greedier and got hammered in court. I hope for the sake of Waitaki ratepayers that Mayor Kircher and Councillors have done their homework on this policy, because they are proposing a policy whereby Meridian rates go up every year until a power station pays the same rate in the dollar as a residential house or a dairy farm or a business in town. People who live in houses use the roads every day. Farms uses the roads a lot too, and like businesses they use heavier traffic than households. Hydro-electric dams are large, concrete strctures embedded in the landscape. They are largely automated with few staff. They place low demands on the road network. If the Councils lose, the ratepayers pay. If they win, and succeed in transferring costs to Meridian that exceed the demands those dams place on the roading network, then the Government gets a smaller dividend and the ratepayers get bigger power bills, and councils like Waitaki get the "credit" for it. The guaranteed losers are ratepayers, power consumers and taxpayers.