From stormwater pipes and streams the distance of a flight to Los Angeles and back, to 2000 sports fields across 7 million square metres of land – your rates go a long way (in some cases, literally).
During 2026/27, the council’s services and activities run far and wide across Auckland, including Auckland Transport’s road maintenance and public transport to upgraded local facilities, flood protection and dog control.
Your rates make up about 40 per cent of council income and contribute significantly to improving the daily lives of Aucklanders – improving quality-of-life and making Auckland a great place to live.
Running the region
- Pipes and streams to LA and back: managing 21,000km of stormwater pipes and streams through our Healthy Waters and Flood Resilience team so we all have infrastructure and systems that are reliable, resilient and mean safer communities.
- Public transport: in the year ahead Auckland Transport will run over 100 million trips on buses, trains, and ferries, and progress a number of projects such as bus and rail stations, and road improvements.
- Keeping us well read: each year Aucklanders enjoy 7.5 million library visits and complete 5.8 million digital checkouts.
- Help deliver food safety: the council check and grade around 7,500 eateries each year, so you dine more safely.
- Road maintenance: each year there is hundreds of kilometres of maintenance undertaken by Auckland Transport on Auckland roads. Last year, over 500km were repaired and resurfaced.
- Bin collections: collecting the waste from up to 27 million rubbish and 13 million recycling bins every year.
- Sports parks: Auckland Council’s 250 sports parks host around 2000 playing fields. That sees us mowing, maintaining and managing around 1200 summer sports fields and 900 winter fields. In total, the council manages approximately 7 million square metres of sports fields.
- Helping Aucklanders connect with nature in one of Auckland's 28 regional parks and around 4000 local parks.
This year’s new additions
- City Rail Link: whether you live near rail, or not – all Aucklanders will benefit from it being easier to travel around the region by rail or bus, and through reduced road congestion. The CRL will also bring economic and environmental benefits.
- Flood protection: programmes like Making Space for Water, which is helping communities become more resilient to flooding.
- Improving places we live, work and gather: $288 million is being invested to refurbish our community facilities and parks assets to support local needs, this includes significant projects like the new Avondale Community Centre Te Hono, Ley’s Institute refurbishment in Ponsonby and further development of Silverdale's Metro Park.
- Dog control: responding to thousands of roaming dog complaints each year and providing dog control and enforcement activities to prevent harm.
- More recycling: an expanded network of new community facilities that receive, collect, repair and refurbish unwanted items.
And, how we’re making your rates go even further…
- Saving on rates: every dollar we save is a dollar off your rates bill – this year we're saving $106 million, which equates to 3.5 per cent of rates.
- Additional income: for every dollar in rates, we raise almost $1.40 from elsewhere – public transport fares, water and consenting charges, investment returns, grants and development contributions all reduce our reliance on rates.
- Our own spending under the microscope: 10 value for money reviews last term identified potential financial benefits worth up to $60 million. New reviews are underway into waste, stormwater, and sport and recreation.
- Better Value Projects: an internal programme helping teams make smarter investment decisions, optimise budgets, challenge traditional approaches and deliver better value for Aucklanders.
- Under-used assets pay their way: letting go of surplus assets into ones that better serve Aucklanders.