Bay of Plenty Regional Council confirmed key directions of the Recovery Project on Thursday. Photo / File
Bay of Plenty Regional Council confirmed key directions of the Recovery Project on Thursday. Photo / File
Regional councillors have challenged council staff about the slow progress of its Covid-19 recovery strategy after it took six weeks to outline the project's key directions.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council's Recovery Strategy, led by Bay of Connections, was created six weeks ago and the council was given six months to deliver it.
The overall objective is to help the region recover from Covid-19 while delivering lasting wellbeing benefits for the community.
But the key directions of the project were only set in a council Strategy and Policy Committee meeting today. They included a focus on Māori economic development and immediate job creation through shovel-ready projects.
The recovery strategy intends to "join all the dots" and support the wider region, including Taupō.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council chairman Doug Leeder. Photo / File
However, councillors challenged council staff at the committee meeting about how long it had taken to get to this point, with council chairman Doug Leeder labelling it "motherhood and apple pie stuff".
"At the end of the day if you want to deliver stuff, someone has to make a decision and we've got to do things.
"We have six months to deliver this programme, and we're six weeks in and not a lot has happened."
Committee chairwoman Paula Thompson said the programme was a merger of two things: a response to the pandemic and a "much longer-term" transformational recovery through the Bay of Connections.
"At the risk of enraging you all further, that is part of what the public sector reforms are about.
"The profile of the recovery is not well understood I don't believe."
Thompson believed the more challenging issue was who the communities were and how the council would engage with them.
Recovery project manager James Low said he heard the comments and knew there were a lot of eggs in the air at present.
"Behind the scenes to get this mother ship running there is going to be an awful lot of logistics and soul-searching type exercises."
Councillor Te Taru White. Photo / File
Councillor Te Taru White said the issue was major risks around duplication and losing sight of what the council was hoping to do.
"You talk about so many eggs up in the air but they are all going to land on our head if we are not careful, and that is the risk."
What is the Regional Recovery Strategy?
The Bay of Connections-led Recovery Strategy will support iwi leaders, territorial authorities and local economic development agencies with their local projects and priorities, while also engaging with industry, the business sector and communities from a regional point of view.
The intention is to provide regional advocacy to central government, build on partners' own recovery plans and aspirations and focus on regional and local strengths.
