Roving Reporter out and about ... There is another new Committee at the NPDC. The Going for Growth Commmitee with a business focus.

There is another new committee at the NPDC this year. This one is called Going for Growth and is focussed on supporting business activity.

One of our team sat down with Moira George, the Chairman of the committee, to ask more about what they are up to.

There are 8 people on the committee with David Bublitz as Deputy Chair. They also have 2 dedicated Council Staff working with them, so the committee has a direct link to the operational side of Council, but also the 2 staff have an opportunity to be involved with discussions, using the skills they bring from their Council roles.

Moira mentioned the model of how the Council has been working in the past has been more from a “bottom up” approach, where the staff prepare the information and the Councillors vote on it. With this committee they are working with a more level platform with the aim that staff, Councillors, and businesses work together.

We asked what was the Purpose of the Committee. Moira explained the focus is on Economic Development but this also includes all ways they can contribute to growth.

Venture Taranaki will still do the heavy lifting with bigger projects for the Taranaki economy. The Go for Growth committee is looking to streamline internal processes and policies, as well as looking for ideas of how Council can support businesses, and new industry to make it easier to do business.

Moira mentioned the committee is not in place to hand out funding to businesses. Rates rebates, or development contributions may be considered by the committee if appropriate, but an avenue for funding to run businesses is not their purpose.

The Committee would like to make it easier to do business in New Plymouth and to make it easy for new businesses to come to town. Moira saw much of this as improving issuing of consents and addressing all regulations so Council gets out of the way of businesses as much as possible.

Examples of regulations were things like EQ strengthening laws and fire regulations, and what changes may be appropriate in these types of areas. With consents and permits the depth of detail needed to approve these will be reviewed and the committee will have a strong focus on driving changes to policy.

There will also be discussions about revitalising the centre of town.

Spatial Planning will be something the committee looks at – with a business focus. With the new RMA requiring a Regional Plan to be developed across all of Taranaki, this team will also be working with Stratford and South Taranaki Councils to develop 30 year plans for business for all of Taranaki. Input from local businesses will be needed with this process.

With Oil and Gas industries expected to reduce activity in the region, and a large number of jobs expected to be affected by this, the new Mayor and members of this committee have been actively working with the NZ Government and have pulled together a local Heavy Engineering Industry Group. The aim is to look at delivering projects for the Government as a group of New Plymouth companies, the scale of which would not be possible for each company to deliver on their own.

There is hope that if this funding becomes available around 1,500 jobs may be transferrable from the Oil and Gas industry.

The Alliance are not big fans of taxpayers money being used to divert to local government activities, but in this situation we understand the NZ Government have some contracts with overseas companies and it is now being explored whether these contracts can be awarded to NZ companies instead. That seems like a great idea.

The committee will meet every 2 months and deputations are welcome from business people, or others with ideas for business. People can talk for up to 10 minutes and there are opportunities for questions.

There will also be a business focused speaker at each meeting.

The committee welcomes anyone with ideas for business to speak with a deputation. They are looking for positive ideas related to business activity and ways to improve or effect change to help businesses. Something may not be working, but the committee is looking for people to explain why something doesn’t work, and how it stops them being effective, and then suggest how the council can fix this.

The focus is not to revisit past Council decisions, or have a moan about how things don’t work. The Committee are looking for a way to collaborate with how things can be improved, or new ideas, and how that can be brought in to place.

• The first meeting with this committee is on Wednesday 4^th March at 10am.

Committee meetings are every second month, and the alternative months will be a workshop format for the committee and staff to work on bringing about changes.

• You are welcome to Contact Moira if you want more information.

Phone or Text: 021 944 809

E-Mail: moira.george@npdc.govt.nz

• If you would like to speak at a meeting contact the Governance Team to book a deputation

E-Mail: claire.kelly@npdc.govt.nz

We would be interested in feedback from businesses about their experiences with the new committee.

We like this new approach where businesses have direct access to Councillors to speak about things that affect doing business in New Plymouth.