Milford Sound Piopiotahi community feedback
Thanks to all those in the Milford Sound community who took the time to listen and feed back to us when we visited Piopiotahi on 22 November. Thanks also to Southern Discoveries for hosting.
The main themes included:
- Fairness of access to the place – should cater for all – the diversity of visitors makes this a better place to visit and work.
- Freedom of access – huge part of the beauty of living here is freedom of access to the surrounding nature – (hunting, kayaking etc). Please ensure any system continues to enable this.
- Need to protect this community e.g. a single staff accommodation building isn’t feasible.
- Need to “get real” about the true costs of the visitor experience and ensure a fee covers that.
- More people on coaches from Te Anau makes sense.
- Fix the stuff that needs fixing and put the rest into conservation – don’t build more.
- The challenges the project is trying to solve are complex and deep-seated.
- See how the place holds up this summer – you’ll see the issues.
Download a full summary of the conversation with the Milford Sound community as a PDF file (844 KB)
On 7 December 2023 Milford Opportunities Project Director, Chris Goddard and Engagement and Communications Lead, Phil Tisch ran a question-and-answer session for members of the Southland Branch of NZDA and associated clubs.