The half-day workshop was the first of two sessions held to develop the Regional Land Transport Plan Investment Logic Map (ILM).
The council is undertaking the process to guide the development of the Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP) and future transport investment decisions.
The ILM helps to identify core problems and opportunities and is used as a tool for the council to advocate for the region’s role in delivering national outcomes, the council agenda for the workshop said.
Among the transport problems raised by councillors were the vulnerability of roads, high infrastructure costs, limited budgets, few active transport options, freight pressure alongside weather events, safety, potholes, livestock on state highways, cultural considerations and historical under-investment.
The agenda outlined how the region was an important link in national supply chains, tourism networks and emergency response.
It said the region served a geographically isolated community that consistently carried a level of transport demand not fully reflected in population-based funding metrics for operating and maintaining the transport network.
Demands included intensive log harvesting, the Rhythm & Vines festival temporarily doubling Gisborne’s population, cruise ship arrivals, sea-level rise across many coastal townships, earthquakes and extreme weather events.
Stoltz said the region was competing with the rest of New Zealand for state highway funding, and she was concerned there was not always an understanding of what smaller regions with costly assets faced.
She recalled a conversation with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon during his visit after January’s severe weather.
“The Prime Minister talked about per capita, and I’m like, ‘Prime Minister, I just need to stop you right there. If you do per capita calculations for this region, it never makes sense.’”
Barry said the region had lost line-call decisions in the past “when you’re talking legacy on maintaining our corridors”.
He cited State Highway 2 between Gisborne and Napier as an example.
Although the highway went well into Hawke’s Bay, it was more important to the Gisborne region, “but all the decisions are made in Hawke’s Bay”.
“The Napier-Taupo road in the last 30 years has clipped 45 minutes off that transit, [but] we’ve added time to Napier-Gisborne in the last 30 years.
“That just leads to a slow-drip of investment decisions working against our infrastructure, and part of it is because decisions aren’t made by the people who bear the consequences. And that’s a contributing factor to resilience that needs to be recognised.”
While feeling like a bit of a “doomed prophet”, Stoltz said the country was moving into a time of rate capping, with limited government and NZTA funding.
“We cannot say yes to everything. It reminds me of the types of discussions that we will have to have in the next five to 10 years about managed retreat as well.”
Councillor Rob Telfer said Gisborne was unique in that it was not a destination linking to somewhere else.
If population was a metric that attracted funding, it needed to find another way.
If the council looked at the economic value that could be obtained if there were no restraints on access to the region, the place could be taken to “another level”.
Māori ward councillor Rawinia Parata feared managed retreat up the coast.
“Unless we do something radical and innovative, it will mean the end of life as we know it on the East Coast.”
The region needed to market itself differently by elevating Māori stories.
“Particularly Ngāti Porou; lots of those great stories are up the coast. We need to be thinking about how we can elevate and share these stories in a way that makes them marketable, so that we can warrant investment.”
ILM facilitator Tim Eldridge, of GHD Ltd, conducted the council’s previous ILM in 2023.
The second part of the workshop will be held online on March 25.
The ILM outputs are to be reported back to the regional transport committee on May 21.
