You may have had the impression more people were coming to live at Waikawa Beach, and you could well be right. Certainly, driving around the Strathnaver area and the Emma Drive area shows a lot of activity with new buildings.
But it’s not just us —
Recently released data from Statistics NZ shows the Horowhenua district increased in population by over 3000 people between the last two census counts.…
The Horowhenua district had 33,261 people living in it as ‘usually resident’ in March 2018, an increase of 10.5 per cent since the previous census in 2013, or an average increase of two percent per year for those years.
Manawatū -Wanganui region had 238,797, an increase of 7.2 per cent or 1.4 per cent on average per year.
This is in stark contrast to the period of time between the 2006 and 2013 census counts, which showed the population remained nearly the same, increasing in Horowhenua by just 228 people, or 0.8 per cent even though there were seven years between those two census counts rather than five.…
Source: Horowhenua Chronicle, 4 Oct 2019, Page 8.
This increase has surely contributed to the extra traffic on the roads too.
Oh, and if you have new neighbours say Hi to them. Introduce yourself. And please encourage them to join the Waikawa Beach Ratepayers Association.