It's beyond Tauranga City Council's control, but their former toll road Route K is still making its presence felt at city hall.

And the back slapping and congratulating among councillors after a positive annual report has gone on hold until a technical issue regarding the road is resolved in Wellington.

Delays to the council's annual report have been blamed on Route K, which was purchased by NZTA earlier this year. Photo: File.

The office of the Auditor General has not released the last ever Route K report, which has to be approved in order for the annual report to follow suit.

Today's council meeting began at 1pm, however CEO Garry Poole asked for an adjournment while calls to legal advisors and the Auditor General's office in Wellington attempted to clarify the situation.

The Finance and Risk Committee, originally scheduled to run after the meeting, was brought forward. However, council were left with no option but to close the meeting without completing its business.

They are required to have the audited annual report adopted by October 31.

Ben Halford, from the Tauranga office of the Auditor General, says the Route K report was sent to Wellington two weeks ago.

The audited Route K report must be prepared and adopted by council at the same time as it adopts its annual report under the Local Government Act.

Tauranga City council financial controller Paul Davidson says the Auditor General's office wanted clarity on the timing.

On June 30 this year c paid council $61,525,000 plus GST for Route K.

The city's last Route K report shows the business did a lot better than expected, losing only $484,000.

Traffic was well up on budget for the year, with around 3000 more heavy trucks using the road than expected and about 4000 more cars. Total revenue was $4,504,000 compared with the expected $3,784,000.

The total cost of the service went from a budgeted $4,899,000 to $4,988,000.