Amalgamation is one of three "game changers" Hawke's Bay requires for the region to be an economic success, Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule says.
As well as a single regionwide council, Hawke's Bay needed "some form" of enhanced water storage for irrigation and "to consider where we can be and what we can get out of oil and gas exploration", Mr Yule told the Local Government Commission on Thursday.
He was presenting the Hasting District Council's submission to the commission on its draft amalgamation proposal, under which the region's five local body organisations would be scrapped and replaced by a single unitary authority.
Mr Yule, flanked by seven of Hastings' 14 councillors, said the council supported amalgamation but wanted to see changes to the commission's proposal. Those changes included an increase in the number of councillors who would be elected to a regionwide council and a ring-fencing of Hastings debt so residents living outside the present Hastings district were not lumbered with having to repay it.
"Unlike some other submissions you may receive, this council has tried to proactively consider beneficial changes to your proposal that in our view would give a better outcome," he said.