The Trafalgar Centre was brimming with ideas last Tuesday as more than 150 people from business, community organisations, iwi and Council discussed how we revitalise our city.
The catalyst for the summit was the toughest winter in decades after four years of adversity. We had Covid disruptions in 2020 and 2021 and then the worst storm in 50 years hit us in 2022. Then came the economic storm in 2023 with the surge in inflation and interest rates. A number of iconic central businesses folded last winter. The recently published ASB Regional Economic Scoreboard for 2023 showing Nelson in 16th place of 16 regions reinforces our challenge.
I am confident we can recover. Our city has so many strengths – our climate and natural environment; our safe, caring and inclusive community; our innovative businesses and unique advantage as NZ’s seafood capital; our creative arts sector and our good infrastructure including our port and airport.
There are positive initiatives in the pipeline that will help. There is the new bus interchange planned next year at Millers Acre, the Bridge to Better project, the Museum’s ARC project on Church Street, a new playspace in Rutherford Park, the new promenade to Nelson Marina, a central city arts hub and the Connings Food Market at the entrance to Wakatu Square. The most refreshing part of the summit was the dozens of community ideas initiated through the “What If Whakatū Nelson” initiative.
Summit attendees heard from the retail, hospitality, technology and commercial sectors and residential builders on how we can make Nelson a better place in invest. We got a message about the uncertainty from climate change and sea level rise requirements with investors, and housing being a real issue for attracting science and tech skills and international students. These issues are hard but Council Chief Executive Nigel Philpott is leading a can-do culture.
The next step is distilling from the dozens of ideas those that we want to progress – some for our Council, some for community organisations – and we need to get our fair share of funding from the Government. Council will be establishing specific taskforces to progress this revitalisation agenda.
