Brightwater Stakeholders Workshop notes

A workshop with invited stakeholders from the Brightwater community was held on 3 April to discuss ideas to feed into the next 10-Year Plan for Tasman.

Overall Summary

Key themes were:

• Concerns for community welfare and well-being across the generations
• Support for the new bus service with the proviso that the service is reliable, frequent, and timed to suit the needs of the community
• Desire to see a community facility that provides services tailored to the needs of Brightwater

Existing Local Issues/Plans

• New bus services to Wakefield/Brightwater and Motueka/Māpua and transitioning to an electric bus fleet (commences in mid-2023).

Supported. Conversations around the need for this service to be frequent and reliable. Suggestions were made for the timetable to take into consideration peak times for medical appointments to help encourage older people to use it (must be reliable, if an appointment is missed it could be detrimental to health).

Questions regarding how demand will be increased. Suggestions were made for a marketing campaign for the service along with some incentives to build momentum.

• Upgrade of Brightwater water treatment plant

Supported.

• Carrying out a feasibility study for a new Brightwater/ Wakefield community facility

Supported; however, concerns were raised about the possibility of this project being detrimental to Brightwater-specific facilities. There was a preference for providing for both communities instead of one large facility to cover both townships.

Further discussion raised points around a lack of communication. There was a desire to see a toy library, a local library (or book service), and a youth focus (9-15 years) in Brightwater. Having little to do results in anti-social behaviour.

Questions were asked about whether money could be used to upgrade existing facilities such as the rugby club. Building new might be expensive and money may go further with upgrading.

• Walking and cycling improvements

Supported. Discussions around the need for more ‘on road’ but separated cycling infrastructure. Improved cycling infrastructure was supported as a way of combating increasing congestion but keen to stress it isn’t a solution for all, many in the community can’t or simply don’t want to ride bikes to work, shop, etc.

Small Group Discussions

Wider issues were discussed in small groups. You can read the full notes from the workshop here for details.