In this episode, we sit down with Billy Brough (Principal Planner) who brings the 'planning lens' to the Hawkes Bay Regional Recovery Oversight Board.

In February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle caused huge devastation throughout the Hawkes Bay Region, sadly costing 8 lives and catastrophic damage to infrastructure, homes and livelihoods.

A year down the track, Hawkes Bay Regional Recovery efforts are still ongoing and Billy has kindly shared with us some of his experiences and learnings throughout being apart of the recovery efforts.

In this discussion, Billy shares:

* Billy's background as a planner and local to the region.

* Overview of who and what forms the Hawkes Bay Regional Recovery Agency / board. * The magnitude of damage and economic cost to the region.

* The planning and policy initiatives driving the Hawkes bay regional recovery.

* Planning for more 'resilient infrastructure', as well as nature based solutions.

* Why it's important for Iwi and Hapu to be represented and engaged in co-design early on, as well as the notable differences between general land and "maori land".

* The potential silver-lining for Hawkes Bay to envision a better future through spatial planning.

We'd like to apologise in advance for any minor audio interruptions you may hear throughout this episode. There were some technical issues which we had to workaround.

We hope the conversation in it's relatively raw form still makes for an insightful listen!

Massive thank you to our Guest Billy.