Horizons Regional Council

🏆 Happy to play our part in Tranzit Group picking up this award at the 2024 Australasian Fleet Champions Awards! Having the first fully electric fleet in Aotearoa New Zealand running in Palmerston North has helped to boost patronage and slash carbon emissions in the city - gotta love a win-win situation 🙌

📣 ✨💬 Join us as a Communications Advisor! Are you a creative, detail-oriented communicator? Horizons Regional Council is seeking a Communications Advisor to add value to our small but mighty media and communications team. This is your chance to connect with diverse audiences and make a meaningful difference across our communities. Based in Palmerston North or Whanganui, this full time role offers you the chance to shape and deliver impactful media, digital campaigns, and community engagement strategies - all while supporting our mission to protect and manage our region’s natural resources 🌿 What We’re Looking For: 🖋️ 2 years’ experience in communications (or entry-level with the right skills!) 💡 Strong skills in writing, digital content, and design 📲 Storytelling expertise across web, social, video, and print to engage and inspire If you’re passionate about connecting with communities and driving positive change, we’d love to hear from you! Apply by 5pm, Sunday 17 November to be part of our team. ➡️ Find out more and apply: https://bit.ly/4ea9jGI

Our dedicated biodiversity team is actively protecting our native ecosystems by setting up tracking tunnels to monitor pests and help preserve natural biodiversity 🌿 These simple yet effective tools play a crucial role in gathering data on pest populations, enabling us to implement targeted conservation strategies that safeguard our native ecosystems. 📋 By understanding the movements of invasive species, we can make informed decisions that support biodiversity and promote environmental resilience. Our collaborative efforts highlight the importance of community involvement in conservation initiatives, demonstrating that every action counts toward a healthier ecosystem 🐾 ➡️ Learn more about our priority habitats programme: https://bit.ly/3C7Meas

REGIONAL SUCCESS | Land management in our region 🌳 31 million trees. 680,000 hectares mapped. Nearly 60,000 hectares of erosion control works. This is the story of our Sustainable Land Use Initiative (SLUI), which aims to keep our region’s highly erodible hill country land where it’s supposed to be - on the hills, and out of our waterways. Started in 2006 following the 2004 floods, SLUI recently celebrated its 18th birthday. In that time, the programme has achieved incredible milestones, with huge numbers of work completed: 🌳 31,455,159 total trees planted (mixture of natives, pine, poplar and willows). The carbon emissions sequestered from this many trees is equivalent to the amount of methane produced by 252 million (roughly the population of Pakistan) people’s farts for a whole year! 🗺️ 686,678 hectares of land mapped, or approximately 31% of our region’s ENTIRE land area! 🪣 Completed 59,399 hectares of erosion control works. 📋 954 farm plans, 849 of which have implemented erosion mitigation works programmes on-farm. SLUI is a highly collaborative effort. It wouldn’t be possible without landowners around the region, who let us know they want to complete works on their land, and we help them get it done. 💪 But the programme’s success doesn’t just end with us ticking our boxes and landowners keeping soil on their hills. This work truly affects everyone who calls our region home, and helps lessen the impacts of climate change and increased risk of flooding by making our hills stronger, and our waterways cleaner. 💚 🗞️ Read the latest SLUI update here: https://lnkd.in/g_QvNdbM ➡️ Find out more about SLUI on the Horizons website at https://lnkd.in/gT69rd9K

📄✍️💧Are you able to lead policy development that promotes sustainable resource management? We have an exciting opportunity for a Principal Policy Planner to shape our work program at Horizons. You'll provide leadership and technical advice on policies driven by the Resource Management Act, helping guide our region through national policy changes. If you have: 🌟 Strong understanding of resource management and policy development 📝 Planning experience and a relevant qualification 🤝 Excellent project management, communication and relationship-building skills Make sure to get your application in before 5pm, Friday 15 November! ➡️ Find out more and apply here: https://lnkd.in/g3WkrS7S

🌿💚 Are you passionate about the environment and community wellbeing? We are looking for an Integrated Catchment Management Programme Lead who is an enthusiastic and experienced leader with solid experience in environmental sustainability and community engagement. You will be at the forefront of developing Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) here at Horizons. ICM recognises the interconnectedness of land, water, plants, animals, and people, aiming to make the best possible contributions to local outcomes from the mountains to the sea. If you are: 🌟 Experienced in environmental sustainability and community engagement 📊 Strong project management and strategic skills 🤝 Great at building collaborative relationships Make sure to get your application in before 5pm, Sunday 10 November! ➡️ Find out more and apply here: https://lnkd.in/g2Wc4but

Event management is hard work. It takes immense organisation, time management skills, attention to detail, relationship management skills and so much more - we’ve got great respect for all who do it. That’s why we’re so chuffed to acknowledge the hard mahi of our staff who have pulled off an original event from scratch, for the second year in a row. Tōtara Reserve Open Day was held this past Saturday at - you guessed it - our very own regional park Tōtara Reserve, located in Pōhangina. 🌲 We had staff from our science, river management, emergency management (civil defence), Enviroschools, biosecurity, biodiversity, transport, and communications teams all present to make the day happen. They sacrificed a day off to come out in the early morning cold to help us make this event a reality, and they all put in a lot of thought and care into bringing it to life - chookas to you all! 🫶 We also had some amazing local community groups and businesses attend the day. Shout out to Awahou School, Ruahine Kiwi, Pōhangina Catchment Care Group, Ruahine Whio Protectors, local iwi and Mouthwater Coffee Company for your expertise and presence on the day - you all rock. 👏 A special thank you to Tranzit Group for your awesome bus drivers who brought some attendees from Ashhurst, Palmerston North and Feilding, and joined in on the fun! 🚍 We’re super proud of this event, and thank everyone who came along and gave us valuable feedback. We’ve seen many say it wasn’t long enough and they wanted more, so watch this space! 👀 ➡️ If you made it along, let us know what your favourite part of the day was below!

ONE MILLION TRIPS | Transport stats update ✨ In the words of Dr Evil: we’ve hit ONE MILLION trips on our bus services in a year (2023-24)! 🤩 Even more exciting is that over HALF of those have been on the new Palmerston North urban network alone! We’re already pretty proud of being the first 100% electric bus fleet in Aotearoa New Zealand, so this is an extra special achievement for us to hit 🩷 18 months on, Te Ngaru The Tide in Whanganui has been surfing the waves of success too. It’s the most popular service in Whanganui by far, clocking more than 190,000 passenger trips in the last financial year - almost 70,000 more than the previous year! 🌊 These are huge milestones for our services, and wouldn’t be possible without our passengers, and wonderful bus operators and drivers at Tranzit Group, Uzabus, Dempsey Buses and Go Bus, who help make our services happen all over the region. ➡️ Check out the full stats at our next Passenger Transport Committee meeting on Tuesday 15 October, which is livestreamed to our Facebook page, or read the report here for more info: https://lnkd.in/dnPFmRFM

INCREASING USER ACCESSIBILITY | e-Timetables at bus stops 🚍🚏 Public transport is a vital service for our communities in the Horizons Region. It’s especially vital for people who may not have alternative forms of transportation - they rely on us to get it right for them. That’s why we worked with Radiola to enhance our passenger experiences for all, while ensuring we kept accessibility at the forefront of these upgrades. Palmerston North and Whanganui bus passengers will now notice these new electronic timetables installed on bus stops across both networks. These screens use e-paper technology (the same used on e-readers like Kindles) and run off solar power, meaning they’re both economical and environmentally friendly. They’re also readable regardless of time of day, so say goodbye to unreadable LED screens because the sun is shining directly onto it! Audio playback buttons are also available alongside the screens, so people with visual impairments or difficulty reading can still get the latest information about their bus’ arrival time. The technology is still new to our users but we’ve had positive feedback so far, especially from those who don’t have access to a smartphone to check our real-time tracking through the Transit app. This new tech was also a chance to further establish the Connect - Horizons Regional Transport brand as the trusted provider of everyday transport in the Manawatū-Whanganui Region. We wouldn’t have been able to do this work without funding from NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi through the Transport Choices programme, and through strong collaboration with Whanganui District Council and Palmerston North City Council to deliver a range of transport infrastructure upgrades across the rohe. 🎥 Watch the video for a demo of the audio playback at one of our Whanganui bus stops. ➡️ You can read more about the full range of improvements we’ve been undertaking here: https://lnkd.in/gTZb6XDM

It's excellent to see Tranzit Group shortlisted for the Sustainable Journeys Award at the 2024 Australasian Fleet Champions Awards 🙌 We partnered with Tranzit to introduce the first 100% electric bus fleet in Australasia when launching the new Palmerston North & Ashhurst bus network in March this year. In its first three months of operation the fully electric fleet avoided the use of 267,169 litres of diesel and prevented 595 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, helping to make our region cleaner and greener 🌏