Economic Development Strategy

We're developing a new Economic Development Strategy to help guide how we support economic growth and wellbeing across the district.

Fostering an enabling economy and ensuring our community has access to education and employment opportunities is one of Council’s community outcomes in the 2024-34 Long Term Plan.

Our Enabling community outcome guides us to:

• be a business friendly district.
• encourage a diverse and sustainable business community.
• enable economic growth by supportung business investment and development.
• support the growth of employment opportunities within our community; with a particular focus on our rangatahi (youth).
• carefully balance the needs and wants of our district when funding services and infrastructure.
• encourage partnerships to collaborate with Mana Whenua for the benefits of the Stratford district.

A lot has changed since Council adopted our current Economic Development Strategy back in 2012.

The regional economy has transformed significantly, a new Regional Economic Action Plan for 2025/26 was adopted earlier this year, and the economic environment right across New Zealand continues to evolve, responding to a more fiscally constrained climate and shifting government support opportunities.

While we've addressed some of these changes in other planning documents, such as our Annual Plans and Long Term Plans, and spent some time working with stakeholders on a refreshed economic development vision in 2022, we've still got work to do.

We're currently diving into the needs and aspirations of our local economy, identifying specific areas of focus for the future, alongside our iwi partners and local businesses. This mahi will help us draft a new strategy for community feedback in 2026 - watch this space!