Hastings mayoral column: Sandra Hazlehurst gives update since Cyclone Gabrielle

Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst.

OPINION

Last week marked six months since Cyclone Gabrielle hit our region and changed parts of our district forever, and the ongoing recovery has taken an enormous effort by many people in our community.

Over the past six months, the community has stood up to support each other - whether it be helping clean up, cooking meals, or donating money to local funds – so many have worked so hard and we are all extremely appreciative of their efforts.

Among those hard-working people have been the contractors who have been repairing and restoring our roads and bridges.

During the event 16 bridges and crossings were destroyed - as of last week, 10 temporary replacements had been installed.

This has taken a huge effort, but it doesn’t stop there – planning is under way for the permanent bridges that need to be built to give all our people resilient, sustainable connectivity.

Hundreds of kilometres of roads were impacted by the event and we are making progress on fixing these, although ongoing bad weather has been slowing this work down.

Immediately after the flooding, silt became an obvious significant challenge, with an estimated one million cubic metres deposited on orchards, farms, roads and residential properties across Hastings.

In response, a Silt Recovery Taskforce was set up, which as of late last month had collected 635,000 cubic metres. This has been a huge task and much appreciated.

We acknowledge that those most heavily impacted have been on an extremely difficult journey, one that’s not over yet.

Along the way, we have also been extremely grateful for those in the community who have stood up to support each other in many ways – from helping clean up to cooking meals to donating funds and so much more.

We are getting closer to providing some certainty for our impacted residents to help them move forward.

Last week our council agreed to consult with our community on a proposed Crown funding package for the region that includes financial support for repairing our transport networks and flood mitigation.

Part of receiving that funding is the requirement for our council to participate in voluntary Category 3 property purchases.

The Crown has made a regional provision to share these costs 50/50 with the councils involved, of which Hastings District Council’s share is estimated at $50 million, and would be offset by the transport funding received.

This funding package offer does not directly impact rates, but the reality is even though this particular offer is cost-neutral, and we would be no worse off than we would have been if we didn’t take on the role of voluntary property purchases, we still have an expensive road to recovery, and that will mean future rate increases.

We need to change our 2021-2031 Long Term Plan to allow for us to take on the role of Category 3 voluntary property purchases. We want to hear what our community thinks so please take the opportunity to have your say at www.myvoicemychoice.co.nz or at our local libraries, both of which also have the details of upcoming public information sessions.

While there is much focus on the cyclone recovery, our council is still working hard in many other areas.

For example, soon we will be opening the Waiaroha water storage, treatment and education facility, and we have built new public toilets at St Leonard Park where the construction of a new playground is also under way.