A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
While much of the council discussion last week on a report by Maven Consulting centred on whether a full analysis of forestry activity in this district might find its costs outweighed the benefits, the point of this recommendation was to assess where the benefits of the industry accrued — to
help determine an equitable funding model for road maintenance costs.
Maven’s starting point was that the council wanted to know whether the forestry sector was paying its share on the local road network.
Those councillors who seem to feel the existing sector and fairness are incompatible should note the council’s involvement in the “more complex factors” that Maven says have contributed to the declining quality of the road network, “such as budget constraints, contractor performance and the Network Outcomes Contract framework”.
Having linked escalating maintenance costs for the rural road network to increased forestry activity, and noted the industry contributes $1.5m of the $8.3m the council collects from ratepayers for roading costs, Maven’s interest in an economic impact assessment was to identify the full benefits, direct and indirect, being derived from forestry and from the rural road network — especially for the district’s urban ratepayers who contribute 48 percent of the local roads share, of which only 25 percent is spent on urban roads.
The report did include the broad economic impact numbers: forestry contributed $132m to regional GDP in 2017; an economic multiplier of 2.7 suggests additional activity worth $224m to the regional economy; employment in the sector was heading towards 2000 people.
