Provocative billboards aim to spark feedback

FACT OR FICTION?: A series of provocative billboards are going up around the Far North urging people to have their say on what they want - or don't want - for the district's future. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Cranes towering over the Stone Store. A giant casino in Kaikohe. A suspension bridge from Paihia to Russell and wind turbines on the Hokianga dunes.

Those are just some of the billboards created by the Far North District Council to urge people to have their say on what they want - or do not want - for their district by the year 2050.

The project is the brainchild of deputy mayor Tania McInnes, who said the billboards were deliberately provocative.

"None of these things are actually on the table and I personally don't want to see skyscrapers there [at Kerikeri Basin]. But people can be apathetic unless something affects their backyard. The aim is to get people talking," she said.

The billboards promote Our Voices Our Vision, an attempt to nail down Far Northerners's priorities for the future. Although council funded and facilitated, it was not a council exercise, Ms McInnes said.

The first phase was to establish what people wanted, and did not want, by 2050. The second and more difficult phase would be working out how to achieve it.

The first of 20 workshops around the district were held this week. Next week the Opua community, Kaitaia College, Switzer Home residents and Ngawha prison inmates will have their turn. The Stakeholder Reference Group set up last year includes iwi, business, conservation, police, health, education and transport representatives.

The resulting "district vision" would give the council long-term direction and make it less subject to the whims of politicians who came and went.

"It's a long-term thing, nothing will happen overnight. Once people get their heads around it, they're very positive. It's generating a lot of thought."

The workshops and a public survey wrap up at the end of June, with the plan due to be adopted by the council in August. Ms McInnes said the finished plan would also give the council more clout when lobbying central government because it would be able to show it had public backing.

The survey, and more information about the project, is at www.telluswhatyouwant.co.nz. The first billboards are due to go up on Tuesday.

The project is based on the visioning exercise carried out in Paihia several years ago, setting the direction for that town's transformation.