Andrew von Dadelszen Former Regional Councillor

What will make the biggest difference for economic growth in the Bay? A university will.

Youth unemployment is a huge issue for us locally and the answer is education. Young adults can't have aspiration and be ambitious if they are not well educated and the Bay has a huge opportunity to help, by establishing a ‘bricks and mortar' university right here in downtown Tauranga.

You might ask why a university, but I can assure you this is a most environmentally friendly industry, that will employ a lot of highly skilled intellectuals (adding wealth to the community) and at the same time provide opportunity and aspiration for our youth.

To build a brick and mortar university will cost about $60m for the infrastructure and then there will be the ongoing annual operating costs. Don't expect, in these uncertain economic times, for central government to front these costs, but the good news is that we do have the capacity right here in the Bay to supply this funding.

My assumptions include the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, through its $200m Infrastructure Fund providing $30m; and Tauranga City providing the land, say $10m to $12m.

This could be topped up with substantial funds coming from local community trusts, such as TECT (our own Energy Trust) and the likes of BayTrust (another community owned trust – that came from the sale of TrustBank). The bottom line is this project could be up and running, with its infrastructure totally funded locally. Central government would have a bargain, only funding operating costs – a win-win for all concerned.

For me, the key is for our community funds to be injected not as a grant, but as an equity stake into the infrastructural assets. I would expect it to be interest free for, say, five years and then gradually moving to a fair return at an incremental rate of 1 per cent per annum. Central government gets both productivity and an educational lift for the whole country and the Bay of Plenty community gains a private and public partnership investment that rewards the whole community.

If you have a view on these or any other local government issues, I invite you to email andrew@vond.co.nz