23/02/2006

Reaping the benefits

I am still very excited by the recent announcement that Hamilton City has negotiated a contract with Avesco to stage the V8 Supercar series in their community from 2007. The positive opportunities for the Waikato region are immense businesses particularly those associated with hospitality, tourism and transport will be confident to invest further in their growth, satellite towns and districts will be able to provide support services to the events, and so on. I believe that Hamilton City has now leapfrogged cities such as Dunedin, Christchurch and ever. Wellington to be right up there with the nation's largest, Auckland as a recognised vibrant and go ahead city.
'The V8s will add to the many existing attractions including the stadium sports and concert events, the proposed new Claudelands indoor stadium, Mystery Creek, Sky City and many more. When the inevitable doomsayers and moaners surface through the consent process I trust that the benefits of this event are considered by the majority to be too essential to lose by allowing the process to be hijacked.
I have observed for some years now that Hamilton City has progressed albiet erratically, in spite of its political leadership rather than because of it and I congratulate Mayor Redman for his inspirational and inclusive style of civic direction.
The Otorohanga district enjoys the luxury of geographically straddling the Waikato and King Country boundaries which allows us to support, and therefore be supported by regional promotions and activities, at a modest contribution. This council, on its ratepayers behalf, owns a 3.25 per cent shareholding in the Hamilton International Airport - an investment that has just increased in value with the news of more than 200,000 visitors every year for the next seven years to the V8 races. Council's $50,000 investment towards the Waikato Stadium resulted in huge spinoffs to this district in visitor numbers (more than 25 per cent increase in overnight stays in the past year alone compared to the national trend of under 5 per cent) and so on. Our limited budget makes it difficult to attract international events of the V8s calibre but council 's strategic alliances and strong partnerships allows us to reap benefits well above the investments made.