Bremworth launches $6M expansion of cyclone-damaged Napier plant
Listed carpet manufacturer, Bremworth is undertaking a $6 million expansion at its Napier plant more than two years after the site was heavily damaged by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Six months on from Cyclone Gabrielle, despite everyone’s best efforts there is seemingly no end to the problems.
Wairoa mayor Craig Little says the scars and wounds around Wairoa are far from healed and almost on a daily basis more are occurring.
What the future holds is anyone’s guess.
“We are doing our best, but we can’t beat the weather,” says the frustrated mayor.
Little is full of praise for the work of the transport agency, Waka Kotahi, which he says is doing its best. However, most of the repairs are temporary and it’s been a case of getting roads open rather than doing major repairs.
“There are three major bridges that need repairing and in one case, every time we start to do the repairs, the rain comes and we have to stop work,” Little told Rural News.
“Just recently we had three new major slips come down in the space of a few days. It is so soul destroying because we do lots of hard work and then there is another incident and we are back to square one.”
The other worry in the minds of many farmers, according to Little, is what the summer will bring. He says some fear a drought similar to what happened after Cyclone Bola back in 1988, which was devastating for the region.
As well as the woes of the rural community, the mayor and his council are still coming to grips with dealing with the people in the town who lost their homes. He says the government funding for flood protection is most welcome and will give people certainty that they can rebuild and have a secure future.
Little believes that if this same package was offered after Cyclone Bola in the 1980s there would not have been the same degree of flood damage that there was with Gabrielle.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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