"We can design good wellbeing outcomes out of economic development strategies. We could get better quality and more co-operatively owned housing and changes in regenerative agriculture and support for small, highly resilient rural local enterprises.
"We are missing an opportunity to get better return from economic development by not getting our teeth into it.
"We have been supporting the continuation of stuff we have been doing for years. It puts us in a very vulnerable position, environmentally, socially and economically," she said.
Ferguson said the A25 transport ideas were focused on road and rail freight, and he wanted a stronger climate change lens.
Horizons strategy and regulation manager Nic Peet said one of A25's main transport aims was to get freight off the road and on to rail.
"The real focus on transport and logistics is removing some of the pressure on our roading system from freight movement."
He doubted whether any big new carbon-emitting A25 project would get off the ground.
The councillors' concerns will be taken to the A25 lead team, Horizons chairwoman Rachel Keedwell said. She and chief executive Michael McCartney are members of it.
Councillor Allan Benbow wondered whether the amount Horizons ratepayers contribute could be reduced.
Ruapehu councillor Weston Kirton said funding gained through A25 had helped Ruapehu tourism. But people in the district were still suffering from poverty and A25 could have more focus on wellbeing.
Keedwell and Peet said A25 was about economic goals, not social goals.
"If it works well it should feed into wellbeing," Keedwell said.
Patrick didn't buy that.
"There's an awful hint of trickle-down economic theory through this. I don't believe it works," she said.
The strategy has changed with the times, Peet said. In 2015 the region was losing population. Now the population has surged and the region is short of labour.
During the Labour coalition Government of 2017-2020 the Manawatu-Whanganui Region got $150 million through the Provincial Growth Fund, the fifth-highest amount in New Zealand. Advocacy from A25 helped gain that funding.
The current Government is "belt-tightening" and wants initiatives that are productive, resilient, inclusive, sustainable and Māori-enabling - with the acronym PRISM.
The A25 has been useful as a cohesive voice for the region, most councillors agreed, as they received its report at their February 22 meeting.
