Phase one - Aotea/Great Barrier plan update

Thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts during February and March when we were seeking ideas for our Local Board Plan and Area Plan. We are very grateful for all the feedback received.

Who we spoke to

February seems like a lifetime ago now. We held public consultation events like sausage sizzles at local parks, hui at the marae, and meetings with community groups. We had one-on-one conversations with you on the side of the road, at the pub and at the shop. Feels unbelievable now.

It turned out our last event was the Okiwi sausage sizzle on 14 March. We had planned events right through to the end of March but due to COVID-19 we had to cancel stakeholder meetings in the city, hui with Ngāti Rehua Ngātiwai ki Aotea, and a sausage sizzle at Mulberry Grove.

We assumed with the pandemic that the community would have other things to focus on but right up to March 31 (and after) we had emails coming in with your feedback.

In total we received 38 written feedback forms and emails. We held five events where 87 people attended. We held three stakeholder meetings which 17 community groups attended (that’s 39 individuals). Plus we had a Barrier Chitchat conversation where 44 people left comments.

What we heard

All feedback was recorded and themed to help us draft our local board plan. The top themes from your feedback were biosecurity, local economy (local food, freight, small business), marine protection/biosecurity, roading, waste, tourism, water and housing.

COVID-19 has made a dramatic shift to our immediate lifestyles and the economic recovery may take some time. Accordingly, we have dramatically restructured our Local Board Plan.

Instead of having several key outcomes, we have focused on one outcome - which is self-resilience for our island and people over the next three years. By this we mean resilience for the local economy, local environment and local community. We have tried to achieve this without losing sight of your feedback and top themes listed above.

Next steps

The draft version of our local board plan is going out for formal consultation between 13 July and 13 August. Consultation may look a little different depending on what alert level we are in. However, we will use all the channels of online, print, and radio and be in touch with the details closer to the time.

Just quickly, we would like to thank the Barrier Bulletin, Aotea FM, Aotea TV and Barrier Chitchat for assisting us to get the word about our consultation out; Claris Store for stocking us for the sausage sizzles; and Stonewall Store for letting us sit outside on a Saturday morning.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who took the time meet with us and send in your feedback. I believe we have a good plan for the challenging times ahead and look forward to hearing your feedback in July.

Stay safe – kia kaha

Izzy, Luke, Sue, Valmaine, Patrick
Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board