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A Kawerau hapū says turning 100 hectares of its land into an industrial park will boost jobs and wealth in the Bay of Plenty town.
Pūtauaki Trust last week got a boost from the Provincial Growth Fund, which will help with some of the infrastructure around its development.
Trustee John O’Brien says the block was identified a decade ago as one of the few around Kawerau suitable for industrial use, but it has taken time to change the zoning and get anchor tenants.
It has signed up Kawerau Dairy Group, a consortium of Māori trusts with a Japanese partner building a $32 million geothermal-powered milk plant, and it’s finalising a lease with a Chinese timber company which has approval to build an $180 million particle board plant.
"Those two tenants will provide around 150 to 160 full time jobs so with fuller employment in the region we reduce deprivation, inequality levels, increase household incomes, reduction in social welfare dependence and better health outcomes and education and training and all that kind of carry on so it is going to have a huge impact," Mr O’Brien says.
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