Bremworth rebuilds Napier factory destroyed in cyclone
Photo:
Bremworth
Carpet maker Bremworth is
rebuilding its Napier yarn plant which was destroyed in Cyclone Gabrielle
, opening up 40 jobs.
It had already been running a dyehouse onsite, but was now investing $6 million in restoring its yarn-making facilities.
It used to employ about 150 staff at the Napier factory, but most of them lost their jobs when the floodwaters hit.
For the past couple of years Bremworth has been importing yarn to bolster supplies from its Whanganui spinning plant.
Bremworth chief executive Craig Woolford told
Checkpoint
it felt good to be coming back.
"It's a great feeling. The staff they are just beyond themselves... everybody can see a really good outcome for this."
The plant should be up and running by the end of October.
Woolford said the hunt for staff was currently on, including re-recruiting those who lost their jobs after Cyclone Gabrielle.
"We've had quite a positive response from a lot of those people. So where we've been able to, we've started that recruitment process with the people that have previously worked for us that are keen to come back."
He said they had also had a great response from the wider community.
"We've had a huge amount of people just turning up in the last couple of days looking for work."
Cyclone Gabrielle destroyed most of the plant more than two years ago - Woolford said the damage was extensive.
"There was about one and a half metres of water that went through the entire plant and you know most of our electrical equipment, all the electric motors, all completely flooded. All the machines were flooded."
While the plant was shut, the company had to outsource much of their yarn making.
"We've been buying it from places around the world. China, India, Pakistan, you know, all these different places, which is, you know, it got us through, but it's also come with its own issues.
"The quality levels that we've got from these external providers hasn't been to the same level of quality we can manage ourselves in house."
Woolford said by producing the wool in-house, they were getting better quality as well as saving on costs.
"We will save between $3.50 and $5 a kilo if we do it ourselves in house."
While they would love to see a higher demand for the product, Woolford said things were steady enough.
"The fact that we'll be able to run two yarn plants... [24 hours a day, five days a week] shows that it's reasonably steady."
He said wool carpet makes up for about 15 percent of the New Zealand and Australian soft flooring market, but with
shifting demand the company was in the process of creating a synthetic carpet
too.
"Wool is I guess, at the higher end of carpet and a lot of people look at it and think it's a it's a big expense, and sometimes it is, so they opt for a synthetic carpet."
Now three months out from reopening, Woolford said it felt great to be rebuilding, and wished they had done it sooner.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
21 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Mediawatch: The politics of PayWave
Photo: 123RF "Can someone get the Beehive a press secretary who can understand a news cycle?" asked the host of Herald Now show Ryan Bridge, opening his show last Tuesday with a bit of a broadside at the government's political management. "Yesterday we had a 10-minute sermon - that's the opposition's words - from Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon about the cost of living crisis," he said, referring to Monday's post-Cabinet press conference . That was timed for the first anniversary of their tax cuts - so why was that timing so bad? Bridge flourished The Herald 's own front page that day with a scoop about big boosts to the fees that Crown bodies can pay board members. "It's probably the worst headline you could have at a time like this," he spluttered. "Now I'm not saying they don't deserve it, but the timing... come on!" In bad economic times, stuff that looks bad can end up looking a lot worse no matter what day it goes public. The lead story on Herald Now that day also looked like it was timed with optics in mind - banning surcharges on in-store contactless transactions. "Those pesky surcharges on card payments are gone-skis," Bridge declared, echoing the government's own announcement. "Most customers will be very happy to see an end to the horrible little curled up handwritten coffee stain stickers on the EFTPOS machine," Consumer Affairs Minister Scott Simpson told Ryan Bridge. But Bridge was not distracted by the aesthetics of EFTPOS terminals. He wanted to know who would really reap the benefit of the estimated $150 million saved from the surcharges salami-sliced out at stores as things stand. "That will be absorbed into the retail system," the minister said. "Right. Higher prices, in other words?" Bridge asked. "It's not much over the entire New Zealand commercial marketplace," the minister countered. But if so, it would not really cut the cost of living very much at all - and was not really a strong lead story at a time with so much else going on. "We can only pray that Luxon and Willis understand that shifting $90 million from banks to consumers is irrelevant in the context of a $430 billion economy, including the $7.2 billion the banks made in profits last year," columnist Matthew Hooton said in The Herald on Friday. Consumer NZ was not stoked that credit card surcharges applied to online payments were not covered by the ban. "This is disappointing because your flight or accommodation booking or any other online purchases could still attract a surcharge," Consumer NZ said. "Those transactions are generally much more expensive to process because... they have to protect against online scams, online fraud," Nicola Willis told RNZ's First Up . "We've kept them out of the regime for now because part-passing on the charge to the consumer makes more sense there," she added. But banks also deal with that and their charges are regulated - and it is far from transparent now how those costs are covered for online credit card transactions. While the Prime Minister had said on Monday: "You will no longer be penalised for your choice of payment method," media scrutiny this week revealed that users of EFTPOS and cash payers might end up penalised by a ban. "Any transaction where someone pays by swiping or inserting, is free for a retailer. But as people move to contactless... a higher percentage of their transactions will incur a fee," Retail NZ's Carolyn Young told RNZ 's Morning Report . The Commerce Commission recently moved to cap the interchange fees banks charge each other. That was also meant to reduce the cost to retailers. More people now using PayWave could wipe out the other potential benefits. "I think it's really just performative. If we're paywaving everywhere and then the costs are shared across everyone," Dan Brunskill of told RNZ 's Nine to Noon on Tuesday when asked about the PayWave surcharge ban. The same day BusinessDesk pointed out that just 10 days earlier the Commerce Commission had claimed its interchange fee cap would save businesses $90 million a year in payment costs. The Commission [ also said it was already exploring what regulation may be needed to address excessive surcharging, which it estimated at about $45 million to $60 million a year. But Business Desk's headline Government beats Commerce Commission to card surcharge ban showed that in this case, the government might have got its PR timing right to take the credit for reduced credit card payment costs now. The media scrutiny also illuminated another duopolistic aspect of our economy: Visa and MasterCard dominating this payment trade. Alternatives do exist, BusinessDesk tech reporter Peter Griffin pointed out on Wednesday . But he said after the surcharge ban, PayWavers here will be less likely to seek out cheaper solutions if they cannot see they are cheaper. "We should now focus on reducing the underlying costs of payment processing, not simply regulating away the only mechanism for acknowledging those costs. In the world of payments, as in so much else, what's visible on the bill is only the start of the story." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
12 hours ago
- RNZ News
Mobility parking permit holder Derek Cossey was incorrectly issued fines, revealing a bigger issue
By Tara Shaskey, Open Justice multimedia journalist of Derek Cossey has had one of his fines overturned, but has not received a response from Auckland Transport about a second one. Photo: Sylvie Whinray / NZME Derek Cossey has "old rugby player knees", which significantly limit his mobility. A small relief for the 67-year-old Onehunga man is his parking permit, which - when displayed in his vehicle - allows him to park in dedicated mobility spaces or for double the time shown on time-restricted carparks in Auckland's on-street parking areas. Recently, he has received two infringement notices from Auckland Transport (AT), because its new automatic number plate recognition technology, used for parking enforcement, does not recognise mobility permits. He is not alone. It is a "big issue" and one that "greatly concerns" CCS Disability Action, the primary provider of about 180,000 permits. BJ Clark of CCS Disability Action said other councils also used the technology and he had been contacted by up to 30 permitholders nationwide, who had been incorrectly fined. Clark said CCS was not consulted before AT launched the technology and the service was "desperately" trying to find a solution for its permitholders. AT has recognised the issue and said it was also trying to find a solution. For Cossey, the situation has been extremely frustrating. Last year, he received a fine by post for exceeding the displayed time restriction in an on-street carpark. However, his permit allowed him double the displayed time and he had moved on before that time was up. He managed to have the fine overturned, but said it was not easy. "It must have taken me 4-6 emails backwards and forwards to get them to quash the ticket. "On top of that, it was like they were reprimanding me and saying 'We'll do that in this instance'." Then he got another ticket in the same circumstances more recently. He has yet to have it overturned. Emails, seen by NZME, to Auckland Transport about the ticket went unanswered and the matter was referred to debt collection agency Baycorp. CCS Disability Action issues about 180,000 mobility parking permits nationwide. Photo: Sylvie Whinray / NZME Cossey had to explain the situation to Baycorp and hoped to get that issue resolved. "I've had to go through the wringer." He was concerned about AT's lack of communication in his case, saying he had asked what it was doing to resolve the parking permit issue, but had not received a response. "They never come back and say, 'Look, we're really sorry that this has happened. We didn't think about it in the first place, but we're trying to find a way around it'. None of that. "It's just ignorance. They're a law unto themselves, it's so frustrating to deal with them." Clark said AT launched the technology without consultation with CCS Disability Action. "The first thing we knew about it was when this problem started. It is a big issue and one that concerns us greatly. "I'm intrigued by how the council gets away with issuing a ticket to a person who is legitimately parked. It seems to me a little bit strange." The service has since met AT, but Clark said an agreeable solution had not yet been found. AT's solution of registering number plates against a permit was less than ideal, he said. Parking services group manager John Strawbridge said Auckland Transport was working on a solution to the mobility parking problem. Photo: Chris Gorman / NZME "That sounds like a good way to solve the issue, but from our point of view, it's not. "We issue a permit to a person, not a vehicle number plate, and we don't want people to be able to have more than one vehicle being permitted to use that one permit. "It opens up the system to abuse." Clark said registering vehicles could also pose a problem for older permitholders, who might not remember to use the right vehicles, if they had multiple registered vehicles. Permitholders visiting Auckland might not be recognised. "It restricts the ability for people to use the permit in the way that we give it out," Clark said. "That is, it shouldn't be controlled to one vehicle, it should be controlled to wherever that person is." The service made other suggestions to AT, like rolling out permits that a mounted device on the council's vehicles could scan, but Clark said that method would need to be developed and there were questions about who would bear the costs. "We are desperately trying to find a solution." AT, which launched the technology in 2019, recognised it was a "complicated situation". John Strawbridge, its group manager of parking services, said: "Our preference is to manage mobility spaces by a parking officer, on foot, so that they can sight whether a vehicle has a current mobility permit displayed. "Sometimes the permits are hard to spot. "However, our camera cars also issue fines to vehicles parked in a mobility spot, with or without a permit, as we do not have access to digital data on active permits." The issue was that the permit was for a person, not a vehicle, and the person could ride in multiple vehicles. "We know this isn't a great experience for mobility permitholders and we encourage anyone who has received a fine in error to contact us to see if it warrants being waived." Strawbridge said AT was working on a solution that would allow Auckland permitholders to apply for a digital permit through AT's Park app. The e-permit would enable people to add all vehicles they intended to use to the AT Park app and switch between them. AT has also sought access to the CCS database to confirm active permits. "Our proposed solution will address many of the challenges experienced by permitholders and, when it's ready to be rolled out, we will be reaching out to them to provide more information. "There may be some more improvements needed and we are committed to making continuous improvements." AT confirmed the first of Cossey's fines was waived, but maintained it had not received any correspondence from him on the second. However, after "a bit more digging", it found his emails. It said it would review the matter and respond directly to Cossey. -This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald .
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
US refuses to budge on 15 percent trade tariff imposed on NZ
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay says President Trump's 15 percent trade tariff on New Zealand will be harmful. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Trade Minister Todd McClay has spoken with the United States trade representative to make the case against increased tariffs, but Jamieson Greer appears unlikely to budge. On Friday, the US announced a new 15 percent tariff on exporters , which McClay called a "blunt tool". Speaking to delegates at the National Party conference in Christchurch, McClay said he spoke to Greer on Saturday morning. "I made the case that it is not reasonable and it should not be happening to New Zealand, and it is going to be harmful for some of our exporters, and we would ask them to look at that and reconsider it," he said. However, Greer had made it clear that President Donald Trump had made a decision, if a country had a trade deficit with the United States, it would be hit with the 15 percent tariff, wherever they were. Top trade diplomat Vangelis Vitalis will travel to Washington on Sunday, while McClay intended visiting in coming weeks. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said New Zealand had underscored it did not believe tariffs were good for the world economy. "The reality is, as a small trading nation, our job is get out there and hustle, and create opportunities for New Zealand businesses," he said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
