The Christchurch City Council adopted its Annual Plan for the coming year on 21 June 2010, signalling a rates increase of 3.97% for city residents.

Public consultation was carried out on the Draft Annual Plan 2010/11 over several weeks in March. The Council received 231 submissions to its draft plan and 81 of these were heard at public hearings held in May.

The Annual Plan 2010/11 reflects the decisions made during the Long Term Council Community Plan 2009-19 (LTCCP) process, with some fine tuning to accommodate changing circumstances over the past year.

The main changes to the 2010/11 budget set out in the LTCCP are a higher budget for the resolution of weather tight homes claims; a decrease in the operating subsidy received from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for the delivery of community programmes and travel demand management; and the impact of a reduction in subsidy for the new Transport Interchange. These are offset by savings as a result of lower interest rates than projected at the time of the LTCCP.