A message from Mayor Mahé with Mahé Drysdale

The Western Bay of Plenty Regional Deal currently under negotiation with the Government signals an exciting development for the future of our sub-region.

Essentially, this will define a 30-year plan covering the investment required to manage the sub-region’s growth and promote economic development, with a primary focus on the first 10 years of the plan. Given the importance of this process, it’s timely to ask: What’s the deal?

The Western Bay of Plenty is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing sub-regions, so to be selected as one of three regions to negotiate a regional deal was hugely important.

In short, ‘the deal’ is a long-term strategic partnership involving key local organisations – Tauranga City Council, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, the SmartGrowth Combined Tangata Whenua Forum and economic development agency Priority One – and the Government. Its priorities centre around the infrastructure we need to meet our current and future needs – including our roads, water, wastewater systems and social infrastructure – with the following key objectives in mind.

• Delivering up to 40,000 new homes in our sub-region and improving housing affordability.
• Attracting the new businesses and investment needed to create up to 35,000 new jobs and deliver real GDP growth of 4.5% per annum.
• Improving access to education, healthcare and essential services.
• Investing in the transport and social infrastructure our growing sub-region needs.
• And, providing certainty about what, when and where infrastructure is to be built, because certainty drives confidence, and confidence drives investment.

Another key advantage of having a deal in place is that future political cycles will largely be taken out of the equation, ensuring that we have an agreed economic growth plan that has rigour, certainty and commitment, with work programmes that will be delivered as planned.

Our sub-region has well-developed and consulted plans in place through the work of SmartGrowth and the Urban Form and Transport Initiative (UFTI), so we were already well-placed to negotiate and implement a deal that will create the best possible outcomes for our people.

The local partners mentioned above look forward to keeping the community informed on our progress towards negotiating and implementing a final deal.