northland chamber

ONTRACK is ONTRACK. Is Northland ONTRACK???

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Do you think that the proposed RailLink is important for th eNorthland Region?
	Yes
	No
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About 25 years ago someone thought it would make sense to have a rail link to connect the main trunk with Marsden. In the last 25 years a vast amount of engineering, economic, social and environmental reports and studies have been carried out. None of these reports have found any adverse economic, social or environmental reasons for not going ahead with a link out to Marsden.

The Marsden Link project appears to have support from all three local councils, regional Government, business, residents and even Central Government. The land required for this infrastructure has been identified. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM!? . ONTRACK is the latest reincarnation of the NZ Railways Corporation which looks after the rail corridor. The decision last week from ONTRACK was to not to proceed with the designation of this land.

Well, Mainland Cheese reckons good things take time - but 25 years? And we are not talking cheese here; we are talking about the economic and social well being of Northland! In our opinion this project would have to be one of the easiest and obvious economic development opportunities available to Northland.

All parties from politicians, business people, and community groups have told me that it is definitely going to happen one day, however, no-one can say when. We are sorry to be the bearer of obvious and bad news - it is not going to happen ‘one day’ unless we become extremely vocal to governmental power brokers in Wellington

The latest comments from our local and regional leaders expressed ‘disappointment’ about the latest ONTRACK decision and it was interesting to read that ‘ONTRACK has given…. And try to stay with us here ... ‘an assurance of continued interest and support for the project, and has pledged to continue to work on the establishment of an appropriate funding structure including the liability that would result from designation.’ We prefer not to be negative but that sounds like a carefully considered way of saying ‘we are satisfied to do nothing because no-one in Northland gives a toss … and we can put this on the back burner forever.’

Just because ONTRACK is a fairly new reincarnation of the NZ Railways Corporation, this is no reason for Northland to be going easy or giving concessions to them on this terribly important project. The NZ Government has a long institutional knowledge.

One of the hardest things in dealing with Government agencies is to convince them of lost opportunities when looking at development issues. The Northland Regional Council has quite rightly said that ‘ONTRACK needs to have vision to see the opportunities for creating synergies for development once a line is put in place.’

Once again, purely because of the nature of the beast, ONTRACK will not be able to see past the correct boxes they need to tick. In their minds, they have already ticked the right boxes by going through the latest exercise, communicated their findings (insert excuse here), and moved on to issues that they view as more pressing.

The Northland Chamber of Commerce has an Economic Development Mandate on behalf of its members. We are adamant that our community leaders and numerous members of parliament start becoming very vocal in Wellington to communicate in no uncertain terms that Northland wants this project back ONTRACK yesterday.

Make no mistake, In our opinion the fault for the latest delay is ours. ONTRACK have done their job but by remaining silent and reactive Northland has not demonstrated to Wellington our insistence that this project must go ahead! The Northland Chamber of Commerce is happy to volunteer to lead this and be involved in a very pro-active, rowdy, one eyed Northland way