The 2025-26 financial year will be the first year Armidale Regional Council levies the full Special rate Variation (SRV) increase. Additional revenue through the SRV totalling $9,255,000 will be levied for 2025-2026 financial year.
The Budget, Operational Plan, and associated Integrated Planning and Reporting documents were all endorsed at the Council meeting held on Monday, 30 June.
A 58.8 percent SRV was approved by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) in 2023. Revenue through rates has been incrementally increased over the past two years, with the 2025–26 financial year being the first full year of implementation. This has already significantly reduced Council’s operating deficit and increased its capacity to improve and maintain infrastructure—particularly roads.
Armidale Mayor Sam Coupland said the reason that SRV was needed is that traditionally the rate peg did not kept pace with inflation.
“IPART has recently changed its method of calculating the rate peg to align more closely to changes in costs. Rates increases will now return to the incremental increases governed by the rate peg set by IPART”, said Mayor Coupland.
Since the introduction of the SRV, Council has been scaling its resources to deliver the additional asset renewal and maintenance.
“It was a courageous move by the Council of the time—of which I was a part—to seek and apply for the SRV. We’ve been able to deliver additional asset renewal and preventative maintenance to key infrastructure such as roads and buildings,” said Mayor Coupland.
A detailed breakdown of the projects completed through the additional SRV expenditure during the first two years of implementation is now available on Council’s website. The 2025–26 SRV expenditure plan is currently being finalised, but notable projects include the continued road widening and sealing of Rockvale Road and refurbishments to some of our local museums, to name a few.
“The community can be assured that improvements to roads and building infrastructure will continue over time. Projects that were previously delayed due to limited Council funding—often reliant on grant criteria—are now on track for completion,” concluded Mayor Coupland.
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