Mayor accentuates city’s positives
Palmerston North mayor Grant Smith wants the city to be more ambitious.
He borrowed Wellington’s slogan for his state of the city speech to the Manawatu Chamber of Commerce and Palmerston North Rotary on Monday, headlining his speech ‘‘Absolutely Positively Palmy’’. He said the city council needed a more ambitious vision than the current one, which was to be recognised as a vibrant, caring, innovative, sustainable and prosperous city. ‘‘When I came to council the word ‘prosperous’ was not even there,’’ he said.
Smith said the city was full of good news stories and potential. It could be New Zealand’s smartest city. It was second only to Hamilton as the city with the youngest population. It had a growing population, strong job growth, a booming building industry and many parts of the economy were doing well, such as Palmerston North Airport and the visitor industry. The city was also attracting strong investment from government and other sources. ‘‘But the region flies under the radar in the media. We need to start pushing our message out more.’’
Smith said two of the keys to unleashing the city and region’s potential would be investment in food research and development, and in a regional ring road around the city to serve the distribution and logistics industries. ‘‘We have fantastic transport connections – the issue is about getting around the city. It’s crazy having B-trains going past six schools and Longburn having 1950s infrastructure going into a major distribution centre.’’
Smith said the Manawatuwhanganui regional growth study, being turned into action through the Accelerate25 programme, challenged Palmerston North to be the region’s vibrant heart. He said encouraging more activity in the central business district was a priority, with the food truck nights and free movies examples of low cost ways to attract more people into town.