The maintenance of Ōpōtiki parks and reserves has taken a leap towards greater sustainability, through generous funding from Trust Horizon.

Ōpōtiki District Council has gone all-in with a transition from its traditional tractor and trailer mower to an electric set-up that promises to improve efficiency and reduce costs across the district’s parks and reserves.

Council’s operations manager parks, reserves and harbour Garry Page said the council previously relied on combustion-powered ride-on mowers which were fuel-intensive, noisy, costly to maintain and have higher environmental emissions and noise pollution.

“With the increasing cost of fuel, alongside our communities’ expectations of reduced emissions and improved sustainability in the work council does, there was a clear need to transition to a cleaner and more efficient version when our combustion mower came up for replacement.

“However, purchasing an electric mower was outside our operational budget and we were fortunate to have received generous funding from Trust Horizon who came to the party with the remaining $48,000 needed to get the purchase over the line,” Mr Page said.

The electric ride-on mower isn’t the only change within the department, and it compliments upgrades already made in combustion to electric tools and equipment.

“The new mower and other electric tools have been used across our full range of council reserves and have proved faster and more agile. Staff love the mower too because it is much quieter to use making for a more comfortable work environment that minimises disruption in public spaces.

“And the cost benefits have been immediate. There are no ongoing fuel purchases, replaced instead with a simple plug in and recharge overnight. Overall, the conversion to electric has been a huge success and has set a procurement standard for future purchases to meet,” Mr Page said.

Trust Horizon have been a funder in previous energy-related projects for council.

In 2021, Trust Horizon funded an LED street light infill project, alongside a CCTV upgrade at the skatepark to the tune of $100,000.