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As your Regional Council, we’re committed to involving you - our community and ratepayers – in the big decisions about how we prioritise and invest for the good of our region.
This is where we share what matters most – our top priorities and the big decisions we’re making together. These choices affect how we live today and will shape the future for the next generation, their children, and mokopuna. We need your voice to help guide them.
Community conversations are ongoing – we’ll be updating this page regularly with new content.
Reducing flood risk, supporting water security, and promoting land and water health are our key strategic priorities. Across all of these, we are responding to a changing climate and maintaining a strong focus on financial affordability.
These priorities sit at the heart of our Strategy. We want people to understand not just what we are prioritising, but why. These conversations are about building a shared understanding of the challenges ahead, the unavoidable trade‑offs, and how we can make the best decisions for Hawke’s Bay together.
The five strategic priorities in the Strategy guide where the Council will focus its effort and investment over the next five years, and support informed community discussion ahead of the 2027–2037 Long Term Plan.
These big gnarly questions – what, where, when and who should pay – need to be worked through in detail with the people and communities most affected, and then with all regional ratepayers.
Use the links below to learn more about our work in each of these areas.
Our kaupapa is shaped by shared conversations. Here are a few ways to dive deeper and stay involved:
We know our community wants to be more resilient from flooding.
In September 2025, we invited the community to register their interest in joining the Reimagining Flood Risk Stakeholder Reference Group. From this process, two groups were formed – one for the Heretaunga Plains Scheme and one for the Upper Tukituki Scheme.
In February 2026, we asked our community to complete a survey and share their insights and experiences. This feedback will support the two SRG groups as they develop a Community Vision for Flood Resilience, which will guide future planning and investment through the 2027–2037 Long-Term Plan. We call this the Reimagining project.
Ngā Pūmate Takutai
Exploring how we might adapt to coastal erosion and inundation, and the climate change impacts on the coast between Clifton and Tangoio. What response options do we implement to adapt to coastal hazards, including erosion and inundation, between Clifton and Tangoio and how do we fund them?
The Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy 2120 is a proposed long-term, adaptive response to coastal hazards on the coast between Clifton and Tangoio.
The Strategy has been developed by a Joint Committee, with representatives from Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Hastings and Napier councils and mana whenua, and Regional Council aims to include it in the 2027 Long Term Plan.
The current focus for the Coastal Hazards programme is to gather community feedback on the recommended responses, and how they’re funded, to ensure they’re both what the community wants and can afford.
As a regional council, we deliver a wide range of services. Our strategic priorities don't cover everything we do, but focus on the areas where we want to ‘shift the dial’ over the next five years.
The issues we face as a region tend to be long-term, intergenerational and complex. They affect both current and future generations.
Our climate adaptation and mitigation work spans most of our work programmes.
Our organisation’s financial landscape has changed with increased operating expenditure and debt levels.
+64 6 835 9200
159 Dalton Street. Napier 4110
Private Bag 6006, Napier 4142
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