The loss of vital funding from the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council will set Te Mata Park back by a decade and will fail to protect the region’s most popular recreational and tourism asset.

The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Long-Term Plan proposal to pull its $120,000 a year Park maintenance funding will see Te Mata Park Trust launch a ‘Protect the Peak’ campaign next week.

Te Mata Park Trust Chair Mike Devonshire said the huge growth in use of the Park requires more funding, not less. Over 1 million visitors explore Te Mata Park every year and since 2018 the  Park has been awarded the highly coveted Green Flag international award for well managed parks and green spaces, five times, ranking it one of the best maintained and managed parks in the world.

The Trust recently met with HBRC Chair Hinewai Ormsby and Chief Executive Dr Nic Peet as well as presenting to the HBRC Environmental and Integrated Catchments Committee with a plea to increase funding to $240,000.

Devonshire said, “We’ve been blindsided by the HBRC’s preferred option to pull funding for Te Mata Park – the jewel in the region’s crown.”

“There’s no way we can lose $120,000 in funding. We already need to try and find a third of our yearly operational funding, and this loss would mean we need to try and secure over 60% of our operational funding elsewhere. This is a huge ask. It would be a backward step and unbundle all the investment that has gone into enhancing the Park.”

He added that health and safety within the Park would become a higher risk without regular maintenance, and therefore the trust may need to consider some form of closures.

“We are a trust and we have a duty of care to uphold and I’m not sure if we want to any greater risk of health and safety due to a reduction in maintenance.

“You only need to look at what happened with the cyclone. It had a huge impact on the park with many trees destroyed but we had the financial ability to quickly do some work clearing tracks and re-open in five days.

Mr Devonshire said cutting Te Mata Park funding will have a miniscule impact on rates and he believed both ratepayers and all 184,000 residents would support investing less than $1 each to protect the Park annually.

“At the current HBRC funding level, it’s 65 cents per resident per year to look after the Park to its current standard and we think it should be $1.30, which will cover the cost of two fulltime maintenance contractors.

Key projects over recent years include purchasing addional land, a new visitor shelter, a Schools for Trees planting programme, public toilets, car parking, upgrading and building new walking and cycling trails, upgrading the Park’s water and effluent infrastructure,  and significant felling of dangerous trees.

Nearly 60,000 native trees have been planted in the last four years as part of the Trust’s native revegetation programme.

Hastings District Council is also a key funding partner, providing $120,000 for operational and administration support.

Bayden Barber, chairman of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Inc, and former Te Mata Park trustee, said the regional council has a cultural and social responsibility to protect and enhance Te Matā, Te Mata o Rongokako, Te Karanemanema o te Mata o Rongokako.

“As a community, we are called to protect our maunga (mountain), preserve its wild beauty, and ensure it is maintained as a sacred place for generations to come.

Hawke’s Bay will be served up a food innovation hub in early 2024, with a tenant prospectus now released and hopes for a first tenant to be in by June. Foodeast-Haumako, was the brainchild of Hastings District Council before setting out to find funding partners in 2019 for the $18 million project.

The Government’s Provincial Growth Fund $12m in 2019, with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s investment arm – HBRIC stepping up with $4m with Progressive Meats investing $1m. Construction handover is expected to be by end of March. It is hoped the hub will create the next Watties or Apple Press food entrepreneurs.

Sir James Wattie, was a pioneer within the canned food industry, creating a Hastings business that has gone on to be a global empire and today part of Heinz Group. When Foodeast was launched it was estimated that it would add $100 million to the region’s GDP over 15 years and bring 500 new full-time jobs to Hawke’s Bay. The facility comprises two main buildings – Building A, an architecturally designed with net lettable floor area of 1,105m² to cater for up to five separate office tenancies.

The building has a spacious common area and a generous shared kitchen facility. Foodeast-Haumako has made a commitment to equipping the facility with a demonstration kitchen, which
is currently being scoped to ensure that it will meet market demands.  This is likely to be added after the official completion date and will complement the conference room, large and small meeting rooms and a central breakout space.

Trimming some costs in other areas of the build and some lateral thinking will be required, as the demonstration kitchen as originally envisaged was trimmed from the budget when Covid-related cost escalation required a rethink.

Foodeast-Haumako chair Dr Nicky Solomon says that the board is absolutely committed to ensuring that the building offers the appropriate facilities and soft-services to support the innovation requirements of the food industry.

“We need to make sure there is a place in the building a where food can be made but we need to make a call on what does that look like, and we need to ensure that what we provide meets the needs of our potential clients, and is as versatile as it can possibly be.”

Exclusive property agents Colliers Hawke’s Bay and director Danny Blair says beyond traditional office space, the building has the potential to accommodate events, conferences, one off meetings and food demonstrations, fostering a versatile environment. Building B offers four distinct warehouse tenancies of 629m² each which include 29m² of amenities and each have a canopy of 40m².

There has already been interest in the building B from Skybright, an innovative health food company, which in July 2023 took the opportunity to showcase the Hastings’ company’s work on fermentation-derived novel protein products, the stage they were at in the laboratory, and why the company believes Foodeast-Haumako is a good fit for it.

Nicky says the long term expectation is that the complex “washes its face” and returns a profit. HBRIC has an expectation of a 6% return on investment.

“It is critical that Foodeast-Haumako we achieve the best result for the shareholders, our Government partner Kānoa, Hawke’s Bay’s agribusinesses, and residents, who have an interest in the project through our shareholders.  We’re extremely grateful for the ongoing regional collaboration that has allowed Foodeast-Haumako to be created, and we’re laser-focused on ensuring its success.”

“If we look five years down the track and ask what success looks like, we see a facility that has supported innovative businesses, which are now maturing and graduating into their own premises in Hawke’s Bay, creating new jobs in the region and potentially new industries.  “We’re welcoming in new fledgling innovators who are benefitting from a collaborative environment and a supportive alumni.

“We’re sharing Hawke’s Bay success stories with our collaborators in other regions, and we’re connecting our local innovators with the wider food innovation ecosystem nationally and internationally.”

Danny says the zoning of the property ring-fences it for food and beverage related industries, which may include businesses in the agri-tech or food packaging markets and it is being marketed as suitable for ‘industry players seeking a collaborative and innovative environment’.

To enable that, collaborative ‘joined-up’ spaces have been designed to encourage sharing of knowledge and inspiration. It is envisaged that once the facility is fully operational, a service connecting businesses (whether tenants or external to Foodeast-Haumako) with the advice and support they need to develop new products or enhance existing ones
(things like testing, packaging, and marketing) will be introduced.

The service will have links to other main ‘food hubs’ across New Zealand, and specialists at universities and within industry that will be able to provide advice.

Hawke’s Bay leaders are calling for more government funding to rebuild the region’s extensively damaged roads and bridges.

As the powerhouse of its local economy, the region’s primary sector and associated supporting services rely heavily on a reliable and resilient roading network.

Whilst Councils are grateful for the Government support received to date and as a result have made good progress repairing damage over the past twelve months, there is still so much work to do. The reality is, however, this comes with a price tag far too high for ratepayers to bear and without additional funding support, much of this critical repair work won’t be finished in a timely manner and some is unlikely to be completed at all.

Across Central Hawke’s Bay, Hastings and Wairoa around $1.1 billion worth of damage to local roads was caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, approximately $700 million of which is currently still unfunded.

These were the overarching messages in a meeting held today in Wellington between Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, local mayors, Chair of Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, the Regional Recovery Agency and mana whenua representatives.

Hastings Mayor, Sandra Hazlehurst says roading infrastructure repair and access remains a core priority for much of the region.

“In the Hastings District, damage to our roads and bridges as a result of the cyclone totals $800m which is a huge investment and one we simply can’t afford on our own.

“We had a really constructive conversation with Prime Minister Luxon about the need for further government support over an extended period of time. This is vital for ensuring as a region, we have confidence in our ability to restore a roading network our communities and our economy can rely on.”

She says Cyclone Gabrielle has highlighted the need for central Government to review its overall approach to roading recovery funding to enable local economies to get back up and running faster after significant emergency events, which are undoubtedly becoming more frequent in nature.

“Specifically, we are asking for a combination of enhanced funding rates and bespoke additional funding assistance that would see central Government cover the cost of the majority of the remaining roading repairs, with the balance to be funded through council rates.”

Mayor of Central Hawke’s Bay and Co-Chair of the Matariki Governance Group, Alex Walker says in Central Hawke’s Bay alone, without this additional support they are staring down the barrel of decades worth of work at the current government funding rate or, alternatively, rate rises that would cripple the community for years to come.

“If we can get the funding assistance we need however, we can complete the work in five to six years, get our primary sector and overall economy back on its feet sooner and position Hawke’s Bay as key player in helping this government with its goal of doubling the value of exports in the next ten years.”

She says restoring a strong gate to market connection as quickly as possible is vital to achieving this, so farmers and growers can efficiently bring in the raw materials they need and then send out finished product, for processing and delivery to overseas markets.

“With various roads and bridges still out of action, lengthy detours are resulting in additional costs falling on our already hard-hit primary sector businesses.

“We understand the impact also extends beyond the economy and for some in our communities, extended travel times are taking a toll financially and mentally.”

Co-Chair of the Hawke’s Bay Matariki Governance Group and Chair of Tātau Tātau o te Wairoa Trust, Leon Symessays whilst as a region there is a shared commitment to restoring a roading network that can support a thriving economy for Hawke’s Bay, there is no question further support from Government is critical to delivering this.

“Councils have been working together with the Regional Recovery Agency to develop a phased and sequenced programme of work that captures the full picture of roading repairs required across the region, inclusive of the funding assistance required to deliver this.”

He says the region’s leaders recognise the need to balance both the fiscal constraints of central Government as well as their own resourcing constraints in regard to carrying out such a large programme of work.

Mayor Walker says Councils are open to how and over what period of time additional support is allocated, which aligns with a commitment made to building and maintaining a long-term credible partnership by only asking for what the region can actually deliver in any given time period.

“With a firm commitment to material levels of support over the next several years we can ultimately plan for a better future for the region, and we will continue working with central Government to achieve this.”

Speeding up both the Government-led Kaupapa Māori pathway for Category 3 land and programmes to address the regions severe housing shortages were also discussed in today’s meeting.

Cabinet has agreed to engage on a proposal for a temporary change to legislation under the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act 2023 (SWERLA), which would speed up the delivery of flood protection work across Hawke’s Bay.

On the back of Cyclone Gabrielle, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has earmarked seven areas where new flood infrastructure would see category 2A and 2C properties reclassified to Category 1 and one area where new flood infrastructure would protect an industrial area as well as Napier’s wastewater treatment plant. These areas are Wairoa, Whirinaki, Waiohiki, Ohiti Road/Omāhu, Pākōwhai, Havelock North, Pōrangahau and Awatoto.

Since the cyclone and other severe weather events in early 2023, laws have been changed on a range of issues to help recovery efforts across affected regions. The mechanism being used to do this, which is what is being proposed in this instance, is a piece of secondary legislation called an Order in Council (OiC).

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Chair, Hinewai Ormsby welcomed the decision by cabinet, saying the order would provide a streamlined process for the multiple resource consent applications that would inevitably be required before construction of any planned flood infrastructure could begin.

“This will play an important role in enabling work to start sooner and progress to be kept on track, whilst ensuring the usual protective measures of cultural and environmental impact assessments will not be compromised.

“Ultimately we want to be able to provide certainty for our Category 2 property owners that they have a pathway to Category 1 and this is reliant on consent for new flood infrastructure works in these areas.”

She said whilst Council acknowledges each Category 2 community is at a different stage in the process, the reality is that regardless of the preferred solution there will be resource consents required to undertake the work.

“In Wairoa and Pōrangahau, we are still working through options with those communities at this point, but it is reassuring to know when we get to the consent stage we will be able to move through this process efficiently.”

The Ministry for the Environment (MfE), on behalf of central Government, is running a public engagement on the proposal which finishes on 18 March. Details of this engagement are available on the Ministry for the Environment website.