Councillor's Comment: How does the future of Nelson and local businesses look?

Encourage your friends and relatives to visit the region and let’s collectively help Nelson to thrive as a region with your local support, writes Nelson City Councillor Trudie Brand.

While central Government have made changes to the traffic light system (in relation to COVID-19) to enable the country’s borders to reopen, unfortunately for Nelson’s tourist reliant businesses no uptick will occur for at least two months. Furthermore, businesses have not been able to save buffers during the summer session to get them through winter, as per normal business practice.

Nelson City Council has extended rent relief for outdoor dining, stallholders/concessions through to November 2022. However, this doesn’t cover lost business ‘as usual’ revenues and excludes many cafes, bars, and restaurants and other types of retailers and businesses. Council does utilise resources such as Uniquely Nelson and the Nelson Regional Development Agency to promote businesses/events. As for the businesses themselves – they are limited in staff capacity or funds and running on empty.

As your elected representative, I ask all Nelson residents to break your normal winter hiatus and join me in supporting local businesses over the coming winter. Encourage your friends and relatives to visit the region and let’s collectively help Nelson to thrive as a region with your local support.