Flooding bill tops $11.2m for Tasman District Council

Friday, 12 September 2025

Tasman’s two extreme rain events will cost its local body around $11.2 million, according to council staff.

But that’s a drop in the ocean compared with the $260m estimated long term economic impact of the events calculated by the Nelson Regional Development Agency.

A NRDA report cited by council staff said the $50m in potentially lost GDP in the next year alone was split across $25m in forestry, $11m in horticulture and viticulture, $6m in livestock, $6m in tourism, and $400,000 in aquaculture.

In terms of council assets, damage to river infrastructure was estimated as costing at least $20m, though this was insured.

Roading repairs cost an estimated $20m to $25m, which NZTA was subsidising between 81% and 91%.

At a full Tasman District Council meeting on Thursday, finance strategy and planning manager Matthew McGlinchey said the majority of this cost was expected to be incurred this year, but some would flex over into the following financial year.

At present they were reforecasting the annual plan, which would come back to council in December, he said.

As a result of damage, approximately 300-400 properties need to revalued, the report said.

Moving forward, group manager environmental science Rob Smith said staff were working on a “refresh” of river management.

Councillor Kit Maling said the event was Motueka River’s biggest flood since 1877, and the impact on council assets was “nowhere near” what the impact was on rural people and their farms, which would take years to recover.

Asked about the impact on council’s insurance cost, council staff said that wouldn’t be seen until it was time to renew.

Tasman mayor Tim King said the $11.2m wasn’t a small figure, but it wasn’t hundreds of millions as had been seen at Marlborough.

“It's not as big as the impact on Nelson, and it's certainly nothing compared to the Cyclone Gabrielle kind of figures. Part of that is because … we lost no bridges, and the cost of bridges would exponentially have increased the cost of this event.”

Approaches to bridges were lost, and in some cases both approaches to some bridges, but the bridges themselves stood up - “some barely”, he said.

Joint recovery manager Steve Manners said there were many challenges in obtaining funding to offset the costs from central Government.

The National Emergency Management Agency had picked up on the issue and were looking establish a protocol for a different approach for the next emergency local governments might face, Manners said.

So while the Government had been very supportive, “sometimes, actually extracting [funds] is a hell of a lot harder than we might think”.