Council has responsibilities under several pieces of legislation to consider climate impacts, natural hazards, infrastructure planning and emergency management. The strategy provides an overall approach for how we respond to these responsibilities.

• flooding
• extreme weather
• drought and water scarcity
• high temperatures
• fire risk in some areas.

Community feedback helped shape the draft strategy.

Key findings include:

• 64% of residents surveyed said it is important for Council to take a leadership role in climate response.
• People were most concerned about weather events, costs, impacts on the natural environment and impacts on services.
• Strong support was shown for planning ahead, land use planning, strengthening infrastructure and supporting community-led initiatives.

You can read more of the feedback here.

The strategy acknowledges there are costs associated with future-proofing our district, but also notes that proactive planning is generally less costly than responding to damage after events occur. Future projects would still be subject to Council decision making and funding processes.

Resilience means the ability of people, marae, communities and organisations to be equipped to adapt and understand the potential risks, to have the knowledge and resources to make choices about how to respond to those risks over time. It's also to have systems in place so that when emergency events do happen the impact has been minimised and people can recover and return to daily life quickly.

Sustainability refers to the process of conserving resources, and being mindful of the impact that using resources has on the environment and our services.