Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon wants central government to contribute more directly, including paying rates on the services it uses and sharing GST revenue with councils.
Canterbury is growing because people want to work there. Businesses want to invest there. And the region offers something increasingly difficult to find elsewhere: economic opportunity.
“People are looking at the opportunities here for employment,” says Canterbury Regional Council chairman Deon Swiggs.
With Canterbury’s unemployment rate among the lowest in the country, people are moving there for jobs.
Yet, he also says that the region’s success puts pressure on the infrastructure that supports Canterbury’s economy: “This is not a future problem. This is a now problem.”
Canterbury has something Aucklanders would recognise: traffic congestion and the other challenges growth brings. Swiggs notes that Christchurch peak-hour commute times are already the worst in the country. Data from the TomTom Traffic Index shows that Christchurch is the slowest city in New Zealand to drive a standard 10km journey during rush hour.
But Canterbury also has something Auckland didn’t leverage when it could - a chance to get ahead of these challenges.
Can it invest and plan early enough to avoid turning today’s congestion and infrastructure pressures into tomorrow’s structural constraints?
Business Canterbury chief executive Leeann Watson says Canterbury is not yet facing the infrastructure constraints seen elsewhere: “That’s why we’re focused on planning ahead of demand so we can show up to Wellington as a region with a clear, consistent and prioritised set of asks across investment, policy and regulation that can be actioned.”
She says Canterbury Ambition, a private sector-led programme developed by her organisation alongside local government, is the mechanism for doing this.
Business Canterbury chief executive Leeann Watson.
The constraints are broader than congestion and transport. Energy security, resilient freight networks and housing all play an important role in supporting business confidence and investment.
“While we are not seeing those future constraints having an impact yet, we need to get in front of them now while we have the space to plan well,” Watson says. “It’s encouraging to see commitments to projects like the Lyttelton Port expansion and continued efforts to secure more international air connections through Christchurch, because those investments strengthen Canterbury’s competitiveness and support growth across the wider South Island economy.”
Transport funding an issue
While business leaders see room to plan ahead, regional leaders warn that the figures behind Canterbury’s central government funding fail to stack up.
Swiggs says the gap between what the South Island generates and receives in transport funding is unsustainable.
He says the South Island carries 27% of the country’s vehicle kilometres travelled, produces 33% of goods exports and holds 45% of the state highway network. Yet it receives just 11% of the National Land Transport Fund, a structural funding gap that Swiggs estimates amounts to $1.5 billion a year.
“We’re not asking North Islanders to subsidise us. We’re asking for a share that reflects what we carry and what we produce,” he says.
"Growth needs to pay for growth. If we don’t start getting the investment now and planning with the knowledge that investment will come, we will rapidly grind to a halt: and lost time equals lost productivity," says Canterbury Regional Council chairman Deon Swiggs
Canterbury’s internal numbers tell a similar story. The region generates $55.6 billion in GDP, accounts for 15.3% of national goods exports and logs 13.9% of total vehicle kilometres.
Despite these contributions, Canterbury received only 5.5% of National Land Transport Fund expenditure in the year to June 2025.
Demographic trends compound the pressure. Since 2018, the South Island’s population has grown faster than the North’s for the first time since World War II.
Yet of 17 planned Roads of National Significance, only two are in the South Island. Construction funding for both has been deferred. (Another Government-nominated RON was an upgrade.)
Swiggs warns that sweating existing assets without active funding will make future retrofitting far more expensive, while leaving critical freight corridors and bridges vulnerable to weather disruptions.
Greater Canterbury growth
Canterbury’s growth is not only about Christchurch City. Greater Christchurch is emerging as a single economic entity spread across three councils. People might live in one district and work in another. Many travel between the council areas every day.
Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger says the challenge is to plan for that growth as a whole rather than as three separate jurisdictions.
“We need to plan across Greater Christchurch, not individual boundaries. There is no single project that will solve the problem. What matters is getting the planning, partnerships and timing right,” he says.
“People don’t think about council boundaries when they’re travelling to work, taking kids to sport or running a business. Our job is to make sure we’re looking at the bigger picture and working together to deliver the infrastructure the region needs.”
Selwyn is the fastest-growing area. Rolleston has passed 34,000 people and the district expects continued rapid expansion.
Selwyn Mayor Lydia Gliddon says the three councils need to recognise that they are dealing with “one interconnected regional economy”.
“We absolutely need to plan together,” she says. “That does not necessarily mean creating one council. But decisions about housing, transport, water, schools and other infrastructure need to reflect the way the region actually works.”
"Local government is expected to fund infrastructure that supports national population growth and housing objectives, yet our funding tools remain relatively limited," says Selwyn Mayor Lydia Gliddon. Photo / Lydia Gliddon
The ambition in Selwyn is not simply to build more houses. Gliddon wants a “more complete Rolleston”, with jobs, services, recreation and transport connections so that the town does not simply become a dormitory for Christchurch.
North of Christchurch, Waimakariri faces similar issues. Mayor Dan Gordon says the district is on track to reach 100,000 people by 2050. “The question isn’t whether we grow, it’s how and where we grow.”
Growth in the wrong places can create infrastructure demands that are expensive to retrofit. Growth in places with existing road, school and community capacity can make better use of what is already there.
Greater Christchurch already has the mechanisms to plan across the boundaries. The question is whether it can make decisions quickly enough to match the speed of growth.
Building infrastructure before population growth is expensive. Mauger says the cost cannot fall on councils alone. Developers, central government and those who benefit from new infrastructure all have a part to play.
Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger
Gliddon agrees. She says: “We’ve invested heavily in roads, water infrastructure, community facilities and reserves. We’ve made sure development contributes towards the infrastructure that growth requires.
“Where we continue to see a gap is in the infrastructure Council doesn’t control. We can plan for housing and build local infrastructure, but we can’t build the schools, healthcare, public transport or state highways.
“That’s why we’ve been working with central government for much more forward-looking planning. Growth needs to be planned alongside infrastructure, not catch up after the fact.”
Gliddon says development contributions are useful: they protect existing ratepayers from carrying all the costs of growth.
Yet, she says: “Councils still face substantial upfront investment requirements and often have to borrow to deliver infrastructure ahead of development.
South Island carries 27% of the country’s vehicle kilometres travelled, produces 33% of goods exports and holds 45% of the state highway network. Yet it receives just 11% of the National Land Transport Fund, a structural funding gap that Deon Swiggs estimates amounts to $1.5 billion a year.
“Local government is expected to fund infrastructure that supports national population growth and housing objectives, yet our funding tools remain relatively limited. We need funding models that better recognise the national benefits that growth districts deliver.”
Waimakariri’s Gordon argues that rates cannot carry the load indefinitely. He points out that local government has received about 2% of the tax revenue generated by the economy for the past 50 years, while being expected to fund an increasing share of the infrastructure that supports growth.
Gordon wants central government to contribute more directly, including paying rates on the services it uses and sharing GST revenue with councils. He also supports city and regional deals and the Regional Infrastructure Fund as ways to spread the cost of infrastructure that delivers benefits beyond a single council.
Funding becomes particularly important for transport. Canterbury’s growth is already putting pressure on roads, while decisions about the next generation of transport infrastructure need to be made years before the infrastructure is required.
Mass Rapid Transit
Swiggs says Christchurch cannot wait until congestion becomes severe before deciding where future transport corridors should go.
“We need to be looking at those future corridors now, so we don’t end up in the situation Auckland’s in, where it becomes gridlocked before you make decisions.”
That puts Mass Rapid Transit back on the agenda. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop says he is “conceptually interested” in rapid transit for Christchurch, but wants a long-term spatial plan for the city and surrounding area before the Government commits to a major project.
For Swiggs, the issue is not simply choosing between roads and public transport. It is making sure transport investment follows where people will live and work and that decisions are made early enough to avoid expensive retrofits later.
Canterbury has come a long way since it emerged from the rebuild following the 2010–2011 earthquakes. Today it is New Zealand’s growth engine.
The region is home to business sectors capable of creating strong export returns. It has high-tech clusters, especially in aerospace, healthtech and cleantech that are expanding rapidly across Greater Christchurch. This is underpinned by two universities and the Ara Institute of Canterbury, a vocational tertiary institution.
Canterbury has shown it can translate demographic expansion into productivity gains, creating high-earning jobs that retain local talent and attract workers from across New Zealand and beyond.
Yet even high-value innovation still relies on basic infrastructure: reliable energy, digital connectivity and transport links that function smoothly.
The region has space to grow, there are jobs to attract people and an economy capable of supporting them.
Swiggs says whether it can preserve that momentum while building a functional metropolitan region depends on securing the infrastructure to match. He says the region cannot afford to stall while waiting for central funding to catch up to demographic realities.
“Growth needs to pay for growth. If we don’t start getting the investment now and planning with the knowledge that investment will come, we will rapidly grind to a halt. Lost time equals lost productivity,” he says .
Read more stories from the Herald’s Project Canterbury special report here .
