Roads of National Significance Impact on Horowhenua District – Foreward

The Wellington Northern Corridor (WNC), a Roads of National Significance (RoNS) project, is set to be an economic catalyst for the Horowhenua District. NZIER analysis shows the new infrastructure will present long term gains for Horowhenua from employment and population growth.

This is transformative compared to our base case for Horowhenua – shifting from stagnation to growth. The gains will accumulate over time and they will be significant: nearly 1,000 additional jobs over the next 20 years (Figure 1). Population growth will accelerate and the size of Horowhenua will increase by around 10,000 over the next 20 years.

The RoNs project is a catalyst for change. It will be a fresh injection of economic potential, by increasing the enabling infrastructure of our economy. This is a free hit (or boost) to Horowhenua – as the investment will be made by central government and will not cannibalise other spending initiatives, which economic development initiatives sometimes are. Many of the benefits of the project will accrue to Horowhenua’s neighbours too, making the region as a whole better off.

The benefits for Horowhenua will be across a number of dimensions:

• Increasing business opportunities further away, as better transport links improve the proximity of customers in previously further away places.

• Attracting new investment into the region, as Horowhenua integrates better with neighbouring regions.

• Attracting people to Horowhenua to live and work, as Horowhenua becomes more attractive as a place to work (in and from), live and retire.

• Increased productivity following a ‘thickening’ in local markets for labour and goods and services, as better integration with neighbouring regions creates a ‘catch-up’ in incomes and other economic measures.

These gains from improved infrastructure hold great promise for Horowhenua. But these gains are not guaranteed. We need to make sure that local businesses, government and institutions work together to realise this opportunity.

Local government can help to maintain cost advantages of the region particularly in the areas of land and housing (as can be seen in Figure 3). Infrastructure planning and provision needs to facilitate 1,000 more jobs and 10,000 more people in the next 20 years.

The role of economic development in Horowhenua will be to co-ordinate key stakeholders and the community to make sure we do everything in our control to make the most of this economic opportunity presented by the RoNS project.

Economic Development in the region is receiving a free hit from the RoNS project – if we work in tandem and deliberately but carefully, the economic benefits for the region will be substantial, and relative to our current trajectory, transformational.

Full NZIER report is available here

ENDS

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