Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board I Te Poari ā-Rohe o Aotea

Thank you

Thank you for your having your say on our draft Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board Plan 2020.

In July 2020 we consulted on our draft plan and received 48 online submissions, 29 written submissions and three verbal submissions.

We are extremely grateful for the time and consideration taken by our community in providing feedback on our plan.

The plan has one focussed outcome ‘Ko te tino hia hia ki a manawaroa to tatou motu / Our island is resilient’ and we were pleased by the level of support for this approach.

Changes made as a result of feedback

Outlined below are the key themes that arose from the feedback and a few changes we made as a result:

• The topic with the highest feedback was marine protection and we added a new initiative for further community engagement on an Ahu Moana approach and advocacy for commercial fisheries reform.
• A majority of the twenty-one submissions received regarding the Lord Howe Island reference requesting its removal. The reference was removed from the final version of the plan.
• Feedback was received on increasing support for social connections to improve community wellbeing, so initiatives were added for social connectedness and an investigation into an on-island bus service.
• Feedback was received regarding risk management for the Claris landfill, waste signage and composting, so an initiative was added regarding the Claris landfill closure and keywording included for visitor waste signage and composting.

What happens next

Our final Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board Plan 2020 was adopted at an extraordinary business meeting on 3 November 2020. The final plan, including formatting and photographs, will be uploaded to the Auckland Council website early next year.

Read the interim copy of the plan.

10-year Budget (Long Term Plan)

Auckland Council will soon be making decisions on its 10-year Budget. Please look out for public consultation on the 10-year Budget over 22 February to 22 March 2021. Some tough decisions will need to be made in these challenging economic times and it would be good to have your input.

You’re welcome to register to have your say on the 10-year Budget. We will be advocating to the Governing Body, on behalf of Aotea / Great Barrier, for items including:

• Expanding the renewable energy micro-grid of our council facilities to include Claris airport and provide public electric vehicle charging facilities
• Seeking a policy change to prohibit all marine dumping
• Establishing an emergency water supply and water plan for our island
• Advocating for more priority to be given to the increasing issue of dust on unsealed roads, caused by climate change and record levels of drought
• Investigating a potential visitor levy to respond to the impacts of tourism.

Your submissions were important in helping to shape our priorities for the island over the next three years, so once again, thank you for your feedback.

Nga mihi

Izzy Fordham

Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board Chair.

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