Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
How well is Marlborough really doing?
“How’s business?” That’s the question I ask every business owner, manager and worker wherever I go. Just trying to get a feel for how the region is doing and how business sectors are going.
To back up this anecdotal evidence, the chamber conducts a Business Confidence survey every six months on the council’s behalf.
It gives us the hard facts to either back up or challenge the anecdotal comments.
We’ve got the next one going out in the next few weeks, so please do complete it if it comes to your business.
The last two surveys have surprised us. There were so many negative stories in the national media, with economists telling us just how poked the economy is, so we expected the surveys to be pretty downbeat or ambivalent at the very least.
However, in November 2022 the number of businesses who were going well and thought that they’d go even better in 2023 was the clear majority.
Three OCR raises and a full 1% on interest rates before the following survey in May 2023 had us convinced that the confidence levels would drop significantly, but the survey was even more positive than the previous one.
Some of that confidence was probably driven by two consecutive big vintages for Marlborough wine, and the prospect of three large-scale building projects, bringing massive investment into the region.
Some construction work started on all three – the Summerset Retirement Village, the iRex project, and the hockey turf for the co-located colleges and Bohally investment. The future for the region
looked bright. The main concerns for many were where were all the construction workers going to come from and where would they live.
How quickly things have changed – the new ferries have been cancelled, the co-location of the colleges and relocation of Bohally canned, and only Summerset
pressing on. Now more than ever, we need our MPs advocating for the region.
The prospects of a few years of serious regional investment and positivity have been dashed for many businesses. Add to that a small vintage for 2024 in prospect and it all seems pretty gloomy for our region.
But, and it’s a big but, this is where we need some context.
I recently spoke with two business owners from the same business. One said business was grim and the prospects weren’t great. Then I spoke to the other owner, who told me it was all cyclical and that you couldn’t really compare business to the boom of 2023.
One glass half empty, one glass half full, the same business.
The small vintage is similar, for many growers this doesn’t look anywhere near as good as 2022 or 2023, but those were seriously bumper years.
The other side to this one is that for supply and demand to come back into balance, we really needed a smaller vintage. So you have to look at both sides.
It’s oh-so-easy for us to only see the doom and gloom, but if you get both sides of the argument, sometimes it looks a little brighter.
When we get the next survey results, we could see a huge downswing in confidence, as we definitely face some headwinds as a region.
However, if we get some clarity from the Government on just what’s happening with the ferries and the colleges, and most importantly when it’s going to happen, then the outlook for the region could be brighter.
We’re definitely facing some headwinds as a region, across a wide range of sectors, but there are some tailwinds as well. The question is, which will be the strongest.