Economic Development Strategy
Hutt City Council seeks to develop a Vision - a vision of the kind of city to attract more people to Live, Work and Play in the future. We've been steadily working to determine what the people of the City see as their economic vision for the city.
Why do we want to do this? Because Hutt City is at a crossroads and needs to decide where we want to be as a community in five or ten years time, whether a dormitory suburb of Wellington or, instead, a separate destination with unique features and a different appeal.
In May 2002, about 100 representatives of the business community met together at the IRL Research Campus at Gracefield, and gave their answer at an Economic Development seminar titled "Partnership and Transformation". Business stressed particularly the need for us as a Council to become more active in fostering, encouraging and facilitating business growth.
There was major emphasis upon the Council being more active in the following areas:
- Ensuring a business-friendly environment.
- Improving communication with businesses.
- Increasing the recognition and image of Hutt City as a place to do business.
- Ensuring businesses have access to appropriately skilled people.
- Ensuring adequate infrastructure to attract and foster new business.
We've also been hearing from about 4000 individuals from throughout the city through our draft Annual Plan and Economic Development Strategy consultation. What they have told us is that we need to be planning ahead three years, rather than the more usual 12 months, and that the "Visioning" process, involving people at every level in our city, needs to continue.
The consultation on the draft Economic Development Strategy is complete and Council has signed off the final document. Attached are:
Contents of the Economic Development Strategy
final-eds.pdf
(264 Kb)