From well-trained emergency volunteers, to a win for wool, to more resilience work in Wairoa, to Craggy Range wine win, to glum regional economic ranking from ASB, here are some notable items you might have missed.
New volunteers for HB Emergency Management
HB Civil Defence Emergency Management Group (HB CDEM) is celebrating 21 new volunteers joining their Response and Support teams. HB CDEM’s 2025 recruitment drive has also helped bring the numbers of the Amateur Radio Emergency Communications team up to 32, with eight new members.
Shane Briggs, Director – HB Emergency Management, said the new volunteers have joined a broader team of trained volunteers who play an important role in enhancing the region’s emergency preparedness and response capabilities.
HBCDEM maintains two volunteer teams, to assist in critical response and support roles during an emergency:
The Response Team is a group of 16 trained volunteers who take part in weekly training nights in Hastings. During an emergency the response team assists emergency services during floods and storms, as well as providing a welfare response, and rapid reconnaissance of damage during an emergency.
The Support Team is a group of 27 trained volunteers who specialise in establishing and running Civil Defence Centres to take care of impacted community members during an emergency, and are trained to provide psychosocial first aid, complete needs assessments of people affected by an emergency, and ‘door knock’ to conduct welfare checks.
A super-important group of volunteers!
While HB CDEM’s trained volunteer teams are currently at capacity, you can visit their website for more information and to complete a registration of interest form: https://www.hbemergency.govt.nz/community/helping-others/
Bremworth scores for wool
Only weeks after publicly scrapping its ‘wool only’ strategy and returning to manufacturing synthetic carpets, carpet giant Bremworth has won the contract to supply wool carpeting to Kāinga Ora’ state housing builds.
The selection of Bremworth, with a yarn-making facility in Napier, as a supplier of wool carpet for Kāinga Ora’s newly constructed and renovated homes will see wool carpet installed in around 900 planned state housing projects annually for the duration of the three-year contract.
“To produce the annual wool carpet requirement for the Kāinga Ora contract you’re looking at approximately 95 tonnes of wool, the annual fleece of circa 25,000 New Zealand sheep. It’s a demonstration of the potential scale of opportunity for our wool sector,” said Bremworth CEO Craig Woolford.
Woolford says that while the production volumes for the Kāinga Ora contract represent a relatively small portion of Bremworth’s total capacity, the strategic value is enormous. “It opens the door for broader adoption in schools, commercial fit-outs and private homes.”
Wairoa River bar lowering
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has work underway to improve flood resilience at the Wairoa River Bar, with a section of the beach crest now being carefully lowered between Rangi-houa (Pilot Hill) and the old pier.
By lowering the beach crest, water will be able to exit the river more effectively during high flows or flood events — reducing the risk of flooding and the need for reactive openings of the bar.
Local company Prydes Contracting began the work last Monday and is on track to complete the project early next week. The modified section will be monitored and maintained as part of the ongoing management plan.
The Regional Council will continue to keep the river mouth open and where possible, in its optimal location. The Council’s priority is to relocate the mouth – when there is the opportunity – from a poor to an ideal location.
Craggy Range scores wine award
BayBuzz seems to get a deluge of wine award announcements. It’s hard to know which represent the toughest competition.
Recently Craggy Range was the only New Zealand producer to win a Best in Show award in the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards – an honour achieved by only fifty wines out of more than 16,000 entered from across the globe.
That seems like a notable test, even if Craggy’s winner was from Martinborough – its 2024 Martinborough Pinot Noir!
Hawke’s Bay drops in ASB’s quarterly rankings
In the latest ranking (2025 Q1), HB dropped from 13 to 14 out of 16 regions.
New car registrations and house sales were highlights in the quarter, keeping HB from the bottom (Gisborne and Wellington ranked lower). Construction, retail sales and employment remained weak. Consumer confidence dropped for the first time in a year.
ASB looks to lower interest rates bolstering future construction, housing and the broader economy. And anticipates a good season ahead for the apple industry.
