Nigel Tutt Chief Executive of Priority One

A flurry of visits from Cabinet Ministers last week shone the light on our region's infrastructure challenges. These visits hopefully also give us an idea about how we can get more action on this front.

While it's tough to get much out of Ministers unless they're specifically here to announce something, it was pleasing to see that Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Transport Minister Michael Wood were both well aware of the issues this region faces with transport infrastructure, and acknowledged that we're behind other regional cities.

Our region has come a long way in the past few years around planning for the future, which is something any government needs to see before adopting large-scale investments. We are now at the stage where the region is ready to go, but our government and its agencies need to catch up.

Tauriko is a good example of the issues and the future. This is an area that is earmarked for a large amount of growth for industrial development and residential housing. It also has a major road through it in State Highway 29; the subject of much questioning from business towards the Transport Minister due to its importance to the Port of Tauranga and wider economy.

Tauriko is planned quite well, it provides opportunities to live and work in the same area, and we hope to be successful in getting Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to invest in public transport enabling works up front. The local portion of infrastructure can also be funded – via a new mechanism from Tauranga City Council specific to the new housing developments and the transport system. This is a major step forward in enabling funding of vital works ahead of when they are needed, something our city hasn't been good at in the past. What we now need is for the Government, via Waka Kotahi, to front up with major expansion on the infrastructure that they own, SH29. They need to do this quickly as well, and get the whole realignment done within a few years rather than a decade.

It's critical to invest in public transport infrastructure at the same time as this, which is a key driver for government and worthy for a bunch of reasons – decarbonisation, access to work, and transport network efficiency. We can see this happening on Cameron Rd. We're urging forward planning on this at Tauriko; and we lament the lack of it at Bayfair/Maunganui Rd, where local authorities are forced into a no-win situation on Links Ave because of lack of a planned thoroughfare.

As an end note, I'd like to encourage our community to look out for their local hospitality businesses during the next month or two especially. These are often small businesses which are dealt a very tough hand by Omicron. While I'm sure we'll see better times later this year, please help them out where you can in the meantime.