Melling

HuttNZ Weekly Video Review 4 February 2020

HuttNZ Weekly Video Review 4 February 2020

Melling Interchange development announced.

Te Rā o te Raukura 2020 held at Te Whiti Park. on Saturday 1 February. For 27 years this event has been held at this location. It is the premier cultural experience on the Wellington calendar and celebrates a strong community spirit.
It featured a whole array of arts and crafts, health and education exhibitions, live bands, cultural and dance groups, amusements rides as well as a huge range of food stalls. Full video coverage of the stage events can be found here

$30m sports science and training facility with the opening of Upper Hutt’s NZCIS development. Based out of the previous CIT Campus at Trentham and purchased by developers in 2015, has been extensively renovated. Wellington Rugby Football Union will be shifting to the hub in 2021. Wellington Phoenix said the club had a memorandum of understanding with the NZCIS and planned to base its operations out of the hub pending finances.

The hub provides an opportunity for different sporting brands to interact, it would not only cater for traditional sports but would have applications for the rapidly growing e-sports, or video game, industry. 

American Vehicle Day 2020 was held at Trentham Racecourse on Sunday 2 February.

Lower Hutt will need to spend an estimated $270 million over the next decade on its aging water infrastructure. Wellington Water’s report completed at the request of Mayor Campbell Barry following his election last year, showed 60 per cent of the city’s water infrastructure needed to be renewed in the next three decades – in which time the population is expected to grow by 20 per cent.

Melling Interchange Project and Debate

Melling Interchange Project and Debate

Well at last the funding for the Melling interchange has been approved as part of the Labour infrastructure spend up announced yesterday.

Roughly 108,000 people live in the Hutt Valley region, and with a steady increase in population, a more resilient transport system is vital for the region’s continued urban and economic growth, Melling interchange is an essential part of that.

The Melling Interchange is but one part of the RiverLink programme, which is a multi-organisation programme of three separate but interdependent projects relating to flood protection, urban development and transport improvements. Together this project will spend around $260 million. This is the biggest development project in the Hutt Valley, I believe. The flood protection that goes hand in hand with the Melling bridge intersection with this project is paramount, and we need protection from the river, as the Hutt Valley is one of the largest urban areas in a flood plain.

Of course everyone is claiming political mileage out of this spend, and given the size of the project it is no wonder, after all with nothing else on the horizon this is the number one issue, front and centre.

Chris Bishop National MP for Hutt South , while at the front in his eyes of this campaign to progress the Melling interchange, no doubt will have a somewhat hard pill to swallow, now that the green light has been given by Labour, and to be honest has little in the can, now this has occurred for his upcoming election campaign this year.

There is no debating the issue that this spend was under Labours watch, no matter how Mr Bishop views it. Pledges by previous governments carry no weight, as they simply are promises if elected.

Both the people protests and no doubt the work behind the scene by all concerned has ensured that the NZTA changed its view.

This is great for the Hutt Valley, but it is a long way to completion in 2026.