Firstly let me start this by saying that I have had the benefit of being an elected member for three years, and spending 200-300 hours on the Three Water reforms. From reading papers & council briefings, to tuning into live steams & attending workshops. It has been an on-going conversation for the full three years of the triennium. It’s important to remember this is a government reform, and not a council initiative.
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Voter turnout continues to drop and I believe the main reason people don’t vote – is they don’t understand what council does, how it does it, and why it is so important in their day-to-day lives.
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Do you know what these life saving devices do? Do you know how effective they are if they’re within a close proximity to someone who has a cardiac arrest? Sadly we’ve heard too often of people who have collapsed and getting an AED to them has taken too long, which leaves you thinking “What if?”
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There is a real lack of fun indoor places in the Wellington region. Tourism is worth $24 billion to New Zealand & I don’t feel the Hutt City (or even the Wellington region) is doing enough to get it’s fair share of this pie. We need to look at ways we can get tourists to stop in the Wellington region on their way south, as just being the gateway to the South Island isn’t a good enough reason.
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Well, COVID has a lot to answer for, and large scale events are certainly one. I will continue to push for large conferences & events to our city. I’ve worked with a number of promoters which has already resulted in some large events in Lower Hutt, but we can still do more.
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I’m proud we were able to introduce a business incubator in my first term. While initially this is focusing on a partnership with The Settlement, in the next three years I will be pushing hard to expand this to a business incubator with a focus on manufacturing where start-ups need a physical space to make & build things.
Continue readingIn August 2020, the government released a National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development. What is an NPS? It’s a legal document that enables central government to prescribe objectives and policies to local councils, that they must follow. You can read the full NPS on Urban Development here, but basically policy #11 states that all councils must not set any car parking requirements, other than for accessible car parks. This means the previous rules in our district plan that required a number of carparks per dwelling had to be removed from our rule book.
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I commit to supporting the Eastbourne & The Bays Shared Pathway. This project is vital to the eastern bays.
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Council’s emissions only make up 4% of the city-wide emissions in Lower Hutt. While the council is working towards a target of carbon zero, work also needs to be done to encourage the rest of Lower Hutt to be so too.
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A New Zealand company has come up with a low-cost solution to stop rubbish from entering our stormwater system. A littatrap can be easily installed in stormwater drains and collects rubbish in its net. This can then easily be removed and emptied. Obviously, this doesn’t fix the source of the issue but does help with the effects. Along with capturing the rubbish in the nets, we also need to look at revamping our recycling bin’s across the city.
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