I thought about setting up a bed in the corner of the Council chambers last week – four days straight in there with extra reading in the evenings meant I enjoyed the long weekend!

It was awesome to hear from such a cross section of our community. A lot of submitters both urban and rural are concerned about environmental issues like erosion control, flood protection and waste management. We received huge support from both urban and rural folk for improved cycle-ways and walkways in the city, as a result we’ve agreed to bring those projects forward a couple of years.

I find the whole central government planning and funding regime for transport quite appalling – there is no integrated transport planning process and regional priorities get sidelined if they don’t match national priorities. So we’re doing a study of the impact of heavy vehicles in the city and looking for solutions that don’t include scenarios involving rail – go figure. Taxpayers are forking out the ridiculous sum of $14 billion for a few gold-plated Roads of Significance to National while State Highway 35 is falling off the hillside in numerous places with no money to fix the dropouts or build better routes.

This is an exciting week for Tairāwhiti as the Transit of Venus events see world-leading thinkers and doers grace our shores following Captain Cook’s crew.

Cook was a world-leading explorer with a remarkable story of innovation and adaptability that we can still learn much from. His time in this part of the country was a mixed bag to say the least and while locals still grapple with the legacy he left, it is important to acknowledge the constructive engagement and mutual discoveries that emerged during his visit.

It has been encouraging to see local young people wrestling with the name Cook assigned to Poverty Bay and I’ve been impressed with the number of people who have contacted me over the past month about adding another official name.

Dame Anne Salmond has pointed to Cook’s journals that suggest his Tahitian guide Tupaia was told the name for the bay was Oneroa. Local iwi know the land as Turanganui-a-Kiwa, Tūranga-a-Mua, Tūranga Ararau, Tūranga Makaurau and Tūranga Tangata.

I don’t think we need to toss out the name Poverty Bay – it is part of the story of this place and is as much a part of the local community as Kaiti Hill, Rere Rockslide and Meng’s cooking.

It would however be helpful to have another official name that we can use for promoting the area and acknowledging it had a name well before Europeans arrived here. Plenty of places around New Zealand now have two official names.

If anyone is really keen to progress the issue please get in touch as I’d like to get us together to make it happen sooner rather than later.