Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

When Mark Boyle, the manager of the Te Puke Economic Development Group Tourism spoke to selected Katikati leaders he spoke of the opportunities available with the introduction of Te Puke's Goodness Highway tourist initiative.

Tourism has always been plan B for the economic future of the Bay of Plenty and has backstopped our many plan A bubbles that have burst throughout the years. When this planned new tourist route through the Bay goes ahead, all of the new Katikati/Waihi Beach ward will be involved. The only question is whether the people of the northern harbour are even interested and, if they are, who would be responsible for its organisation. Mark pointed out the need for new leadership in the area. The project would not be the Western Bay of Plenty District Council's responsibility and could never be run by a community board. When these new leaders worked out their priorities and planning only then should they approach council for help. Unfortunately, all of the northern harbour responses I have heard and read identify real problems ahead for the project.

Most responses only considered Katikati and did not consider any new ward implications. The suggestion that we should ‘maintain our arty town' was worrying. A few years ago when an art teacher at the local college suggested the idea of a mural town it was seen as a first step for bringing people together, claiming and supporting an identity which would give us the necessary impetus to move on and develop our whole town. The mural project was supposed to be a starting point not an end point for the town.

Mark's appeal was met with 'We don't want Te Puke telling us what to do” and 'We don't want to become little brother to Te Puke”. Mark saw our own EDG equivalent in Katikati well into the future but was only pressing for what was achievable now, a group to promote tourism that could take advantage of the Goodness Highway concept.

Everybody from Waihi to Whakatane could be working together and the project could be up and running within the year. EDG has already spoken with tour operators from Auckland. The groundwork has been done and they are just waiting for a decision to start.

The saddest of all the comments was the attack on Councillor Norm Mayo from Sam Dunlop, a community board member who should know better. He accused Norm of bringing Mark to speak to Katikati because of a lack of leaders in the town. Mark has been talking with groups in the town for more than a year and it was Mark and others from the group who were encouraging leaders to come forward. It was Mark's advice that leaders should not come from the council but Sam continued recommending at the end of the meeting that all suggestions should be addresses to Katch Katikati, itself a council controlled organisation. This had the effect of closing of any open discussion and the meeting closed. With this response, Sam inadvertently revealed why so many good initiatives in the town were described in another response as being all talk and no do. The last response quoted was that instead of setting up a business group we should see a tourist group developed. That was Mark's main advice and the theme throughout the night. It is nice to know that the message did get through to some people.