{"id":840596,"date":"2026-08-02T21:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T21:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/840596\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T21:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T21:57:13","slug":"nsw-residents-forced-to-choose-between-endless-potholes-or-huge-council-rate-hike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/840596\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW residents forced to choose between endless potholes, or huge council rate hike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exclusive: When Bradley Thiessen learned his local council was proposing a huge 34.4 per cent rate hike, he was horrified but not surprised.<\/p>\n

Councils across Australia have been increasing rates to keep up with inflation, rising costs and increased service demands, with some councils in NSW announcing rate hikes of up to 50 per cent<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

\"Bradley<\/p>\n

Bradley Thiessen has lived in the Wingecarribee Shire Council area all his life and is unimpressed with its latest proposal.\u00a0Bradley Thiessen<\/p>\n

In February, Mayor of Wingecarribee Shire Council Jesse Fitzpatrick promised NSW Southern Highlands residents there would be no special rate rise<\/a> for the 2026-27 financial year.<\/p>\n

Now, council appears to have backtracked.<\/p>\n

It has identified a $100 million gap between the cost of maintaining local roads and infrastructure, and the funding available to it each year. <\/p>\n

More than $31 million of that is required for urgent work on deteriorating roads and infrastructure, like the potholes Thiessen said plague the region.<\/p>\n

It has proposed two options<\/a> to manage the problem.<\/p>\n

Locals can stick to the \u201cstatus quo\u201d Fitzpatrick promised and continue with ordinary rate peg increases while, by the council\u2019s own admission, already deteriorated roads and infrastructure continue to decline. <\/p>\n

Or they can agree to a special rate variation (SRV) that would lock Wingecarribee residents into a permanent 34.4 per cent cumulative rate hike over three years so that more funding can be invested in maintaining roads and buildings properly.<\/p>\n

Thiessen told nine.com.au that\u2019s no choice at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving the public only two choices, one of them being higher rates and the other one being the deterioration of public infrastructure, I think is pretty slack,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a false choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have you got a story? Contact\u00a0reporter Maddison Skipper:\u00a0mskipper@nine.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

Wingecarribee Shire Council\u2019s proposal comes on the back of years of rate hikes and other major fee increases.<\/p>\n

Local ratepayers went through a 45.3 per cent cumulative rate rise\u00a0between 2016 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Water access charges have jumped by 15 per cent for 2026-27, water usage charges are up by 26 per cent, and sewer charges have increased by 8.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hitting many in the hip pocket and Thiessen said young families like his might not be able to keep up with a major rate hike as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is gonna it\u2019s going to add up, and it\u2019s going to be a struggle for a lot of people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also claimed Wingecarribee Shire Council had not been transparent with locals about how ratepayer funding is spent.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are over it. They\u2019re over being given excuses and reasons for the deterioration of roads and public services, but no real answers as to what council\u2019s going to do to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wingecarribee Shire Council\u2019s two-option proposal is currently out for community consultation, with locals invited to have their say until August 28.<\/p>\n

Thiessen is demanding the council present another option that will prioritise vital work on roads and infrastructure without costing locals a small fortune in rates.<\/p>\n

He started a Change.org petition<\/a> opposing Wingecarribee Shire Council\u2019s proposal and calling for an independent audit of council spending.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, it had more than 500 signatures.<\/p>\n

Wingecarribee Shire Council said independent financial advice is how it developed the two-option proposal in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil engaged independent financial experts AEC Group to undertake a Financial Sustainability Assessment of Council\u2019s long-term financial position, infrastructure obligations and available financial levers,\u201d a Wingecarribee Shire Council spokesperson told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work informed the two financially modelled scenarios included in Council\u2019s Long Term Financial Plan and now being presented to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modelling shows a 34.4 per cent rate hike would generate an estimated $152\u00a0million in\u00a0additional\u00a0revenue for Wingecarribee Shire Council over a decade, which could go a long way in addressing its $100 million gap.<\/p>\n

But Thiessen said that money shouldn\u2019t come out of residents\u2019 pockets.<\/p>\n

\"Australia<\/p>\n

Increasing rates would generate more than $150 million for the council.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were running a business that was losing money, you couldn\u2019t just keep going to the bank and asking for more, they would just say no,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the public\u2019s right to say no, and to expect better administration and operations within the council before they ask for more money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive: When Bradley Thiessen learned his local council was proposing a huge 34.4 per cent rate hike, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-840596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}