Tauranga City councillors are being asked to vote to pull city financial support for the Mount Maunganui New Year's Eve party.

Tuesday's meeting – the last city council meeting of the triennium - is called in part to pass on recommendations from council staff and police to remove council support for Mount Maunganui New Year's Eve celebrations on the grounds of public safety.

Revellers party the night away at previous New Year's Eve celebrations at Mount Maunganui.

In recent years, the risks associated with the event and attracting primarily young people to the Mount Maunganui Main Beach have increased.

Stakeholders raised a number of growing concerns at the last NYE debrief, says general manager city transformation, Jaine Lovell-Gadd's report to council.

The general age of the NYE crowd was younger than previous years and police reported an increase in the serious nature of sexual offending and serious assaults.

The Mount NYE has a long history of being a challenging night to manage for TCC and NZ Police. The Mount is well known as a NYE destination with young people.

Tauranga City Council and police have been managing the night for well over a decade and have yet to find a sustainable solution, says Jaine.

The New Year's Eve event is the highest risk event in Tauranga.

As planning to mitigate the risks of staging an event on NYE progressed, it also became apparent that the cost of implementing a safe event would increase significantly, and even then, the high risks associated with the event were not able to be eliminated.

Two key themes emerged, says Jaine: 'it's not appropriate for the city to continue to stage an event year on year with such high risks and costs, and; the current NYE reputation is not wanted for the city and we should be looking for a staged approach towards change, involving our communities”.

The councillors are being asked to approve a review of the council's long term approach for NYE and the council role.

Councillors are also being asked to approve fireworks for only the Tauranga CBD this New Year, and to engage Bay Venues to put on some sort of youth event at the ASB arena – and to approve a quarter of a million dollar increase to the NYE budget.

Approved funding for the NYE event is $279,000 for 2016/17 which is an increase of $50,000 on last year's budget. The budgets were set before the 2015/16 NYE, and before the full extent of risks were apparent.

The identified costs to stage a New Year's Eve event this year are $692,000 for operational costs, plus $92,000 for one off plans. The total is $784,000. This leaves a budget shortfall of $505,000. The identified cost of having no organised event at Mount Maunganui Main Beach is $440,000 for operational costs, plus $92,000 for the one-off plans. The total is $532,000, which leaves a budget shortfall of $253,000.

The city council needs to move from managing public disorder to managing public safety, says Jaine.

'With this knowledge the event cannot be managed as it has been in previous years. The issues of crowd control and safety, arising from last year's event, has meant there has had to be a review of issues on the Mount Maunganui peninsula with focused working groups and input from independent major event specialists.

'Through this process the need for changes has been identified to how any event on New Year's Eve at the Mount Maunganui Main Beach might be delivered and managed and also a review of the approach to city operations within the area. The recent change in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 reinforces the need to make improvements.”

A project team was developed to review the way NYE has been delivered and to plan how to deliver the night in a safer environment.

In previous years one person managed the delivery of the event with support from other departments, but this approach is considered no longer appropriate, nor sustainable to achieve a safer environment for our communities.

To achieve a vibrant and safe city as reflected in the City Centre Strategy, Jaine says the fundamental issue is that the council needs to ensure that New Year's Eve is safe for the community, and that the council needs to re-position the approach over the next five Years.

The new approach needs to start in 2016/17. We need to do something different, otherwise we are most likely to have the same issues and they will continue to escalate, says Jaine.