LOOKING BACK ...
in Dunedin.
Hundreds welcomed the team home, thousands lined the streets for Ranfurly Shield parades, and then it was gone, after a record short reign of just six days, lost to Counties Manukau.
2014: LOTTO GOLD
In June, holders of a Lotto Powerball ticket sold at Pak’nSave in Hastings won more than $13 million. Hawke’s Bay had, like much of the rest of the country, gone a bit bonkers when the Powerball stakes got high, especially when it got over $30m. In 2011 a ticket sold in Dannevirke won more than $17m as one of two First Division winners, and there’ve been other eight-figure pots of gold delivered to Hawke’s Bay, including more than $11m in March this year to a ticket bought at the country’s luckiest Lotto shop, Unichem Pharmacy Stortford Lodge, or Peter Dunkerley Chemist as it was known.
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2015: NO MERGER
After a drawn-out and sometimes bitter public debate voters of Hawke’s Bay soundly rejected a proposal to merge the Hawke’s Bay regional, Napier city, and Wairoa, Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay district councils. In a referendum which ended on September 15, there were 69,985 votes.
While Hastings had a small majority in favour, the proposal was heavily defeated elsewhere, with 66.3 per cent across Hawke’s Bay voting against.
2016: WATER CRISIS
New Zealand’s clean, green image and Hawke’s Bay’s reputation for some of the purest public drinking water on the globe took a massive hit, as did local government in the region with the Havelock North Water Crisis — contamination of Havelock North’s water was first reported publicly on August 14. It resulted in New Zealand’s biggest outbreak of water-borne illness, responsible for four deaths and sickness reported by more than 5000 people, closing schools and other facilities and establishments.
A full commission of inquiry was ordered, leading to changes in regulations and with impacts still being felt almost three years later.
2017: CRUISE CITY
Traditionally a cargo port, Napier’s emergence as a cruise destination was highlighted when the biggest liner plying the waters of Australasia, the Ovation of the Seas, berthed and let loose more than 4000 passengers in the city and environs for a few hours.
The first cruise liner to berth in Napier was the Marco Polo with 372 passengers in 1995. At 346m, Ovation set the record as the biggest, but there are still more records to be broken, with a one-day record number of cruise line passengers in town on March 4 this year, and next season a record 87 cruise line stops booked, rapidly increasing from 57 in the 2017-2018 season and 72 this season.
2018: ART DECO MARKS 30 YEARS
One of the world’s most unique community celebrations, Napier’s Art Deco Festival celebrated its 30th anniversary on February 14-17. Marking the era of architectural design featured widely in the city as a result of the reconstruction after the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake of February 3, 1931, it draws huge crowds, including more than 30,000 each year to the Art Deco Parade. Thousands of others visit Napier at other times of the year.
2019: REAL ESTATE RECORDS
Amid a housing crisis that had escalated nationwide during the eight years since Housing New Zealand began removing or demolishing hundreds of state houses and units, including more than 300 in Hawke’s Bay, property values in the residential property market continued to soar in the region as investors started to turn their backs on their dreams in Auckland.
In April it was reported the median house sale price in Hawke’s Bay had hit $493,000, representing a near 50 per cent increase over the past five years, but barely half the going rate in Auckland. In 2002 Hawke’s Bay reported it had hit what was then also a record — $162,000.