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Wednesday 22 January 2025
Bus help for seniors
Havili leads Crusaders
Page 9
‘Head down, bum up, and get through it’ ELISE VOLLWEILER and ANNE HARDIE Times have been tough for retailers, and with a small lift in local consumer spending last year, business owners are watching the coming year with cautious optimism. Nationally, Worldline NZ’s figures show that in 2024, consumer spending growth was the slowest it has been in half a decade, but in the Nelson-Tasman region, the figures crept ever-so-slightly upwards. While some other parts of the country had negative growth, spending here grew by 2.6 per cent to reach $85 million worth of transactions. Retailers were still battening down the hatches after a rough couple of years, with the feeling being that of a holding zone as business owners tread water until things improve. Craig Skillicorn, who has owned Motueka’s Reliance Betta Electrical owner for 37 years, says that as an industry, sales were “pretty flat” in 2024, but they had expected this to be the case. “We’ve been around since ’88… so we’ve seen this before.” He says that he was remaining optimistic that, with reducing interest rates, sales would pick up in 2025. In the meantime, they were easing back on holding excess stock as a buffer. Craig reminded people to support their local businesses to help get them through the tough
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Strandings spread along bay coast
Volunteers work to refloat 30 whales stranded at Pakawau. Photo: Project Jonah. GORDON PREECE Golden Bay whale strandings have kept volunteers and community groups busy this summer. On Saturday night another pilot whale
stranding was reported, this time at Pakawau. Thirty whales were swimming in the bay under DOC monitoring, but the pod became stranded. By Sunday afternoon volunteers initially managed
to move the whales 3km out, but there was no inclination they would swim off, and the pod restranded at Pakawau on Monday morning.
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