Hastings District Council

Hastings District is a Territorial authority district within the Hawke's Bay Region, on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It covers the southern half of the Hawke's Bay coast, excluding Napier City, which is a separate territorial authority. Hastings District Council is headquartered in the city of Hastings, the district's largest town. The district has an area of 5,227 square kilometres. The population was 91,900 as of June 2023, which is 1.8% of the population of New Zealand, ranking it tenth in population size out of the seventy-four territorial authorities. This comprises 51,500 people in the Hastings urban area, 15,200 people in the Havelock North urban area, 2,090 people in the Clive urban area, and 23,110 people in rural areas and settlements. Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst was elected as mayor in a by-election in 2017, and re-elected in the 2019 local elections.

The Hastings Clock Tower is a public landmark in the New Zealand city of Hastings. Designed by Sidney George Chaplin, and erected in 1935, the tower is located in the Hastings central business district alongside the Palmerston North-Gisborne railway line adjacent to the intersection of Heretaunga Street and Russell Street. The clock tower was designed as a symbol of recovery from the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake and was not intended as a memorial; however, in 1995, brass plaques were added to the tower in memory of those who died during the earthquake.

Heretaunga Street (Māori pronunciation: [hɛɾɛˈtɑːʉŋa]) is the main arterial road through Hastings, New Zealand. The street forms the heart of the Central Business District of Hastings City across six blocks numbered 100, 200, and 300 Blocks with the railway line dividing the blocks by East and West. The name Heretaunga is taken from the name of the Māori Land Block on which Hastings was established in 1873. The majority of buildings along Heretaunga Street were destroyed or damaged in the deadly 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake. As a result the six City Centre blocks were rebuilt predominantly between the years 1931-1936 in the architectural styles of Stripped Classicism, Art Deco, and Spanish Mission Revival and now comprise a full historic streetscape in one of the longest contiguous retail high streets in New Zealand.

Hastings Central is the central suburb and business district of Hastings City, in the Hawke's Bay Region of New Zealand's North Island.

Hastings (; Māori: Heretaunga) is an inland city of New Zealand and is one of the two major urban areas in Hawke's Bay, on the east coast of the North Island. The population of Hastings (including Flaxmere) is 51,500 (as of June 2023), with a further 15,200 people in Havelock North and 2,090 in Clive. Hastings is about 18 kilometres inland of the coastal city of Napier. These two neighbouring cities are often called "The Bay Cities" or "The Twin Cities". The city is the administrative centre of the Hastings District. Since the merger of the surrounding and satellite settlements, Hastings has grown to become one of the largest urban areas in Hawke's Bay. Hastings District is a food production region. The fertile Heretaunga Plains surrounding the city produce stone fruits, pome fruit, kiwifruit and vegetables, and the area is one of New Zealand's major red wine producers. Associated business include food processing, agricultural services, rural finance and freight. Hastings is the major service centre for the surrounding inland pastoral communities and tourism.

Hastings Boys' High School is a boys' secondary school in Hastings, New Zealand. The school is part of the Super 8. The school was founded in 1904 as Hastings High School. In 1922, it became Hastings Technical School under the leadership of William Penlington, who remained headmaster until 1949.In the mid-1950s, the school split into Hastings Girls' High School and Hastings Boys' School. It has four Houses, Te Mata (red), Heretaunga (blue), Te Kahu (grey) and Manu Huia (black). These houses compete in many sporting events with each other throughout the year. Students at Hastings Boys' High School organised a conference in 1999 to consider cloning the Huia, their school emblem. The Māori tribe Ngāti Huia agreed, in principle, to support the endeavour, which would be carried out at the University of Otago, and a California-based Internet start-up volunteered $100,000 of funding. The cloning did not ultimately take place.

Akina is a suburb of Hastings City, in the Hawke's Bay Region of New Zealand's North Island. The suburb includes Akina Park, Hawke's Bay soccer and softball park.

The Hastings railway station in Hastings, New Zealand is the main railway station in Hastings and an intermediate stop on the Palmerston North–Gisborne Line. The station is on the corner of Russell Street (which ran alongside the line) and St Aubyn Street, and is close to the centre of Hastings. It is no longer used by any regularly-scheduled passenger services. On 12 October 1874 the original station and the first section of the line south from Napier to Hastings was opened with special trains, a picnic and a band. On the day of the opening a gale blew the roof off the station house. The 4th class station was taken over from the international contractor, Brogdens, on 18 January 1875. The line gradually extended beyond Hastings, with completion on 9 March 1891 when it was opened through the Manawatū Gorge to Palmerston North and, hence, to Wellington. From 1874 to 2001 numerous passenger trains serviced the station. These included local "mixed" trains that carried both passengers and goods between communities in the southern Hawke's Bay, and express trains from Wellington such as the Endeavour. The Bay Express was the last regularly scheduled service to use the station. The annual returns show that the station was busy. For example, in 1924 Hastings sold 154.970 tickets and exported 35,380 sheep and pigs.Passenger services ceased on 7 October 2001. The station building had stood empty since then, but is still visited by occasional heritage train excursions.In the early hours of 21 September 2019 the building was set alight and burned to the ground. The remains were contaminated with asbestos and demolished.The station was enlarged in the 1880s, so that by 1896 there was a 2nd class station, platform, cart approach, 100 ft (30 m) x 30 ft (9.1 m) goods shed, loading bank, cattle yards, engine shed, stationmaster's house, urinals and a passing loop for 44 wagons. A new station building and goods shed opened in 1962, the old 142 ft (43 m) x 32 ft (9.8 m) goods shed being removed in 1965.Hastings Racecourse, 1 mi 47 ch (2.6 km) to the south, opened as a siding in 1882 and a platform was added in 1900.

Taikura Rudolf Steiner School is a co-educational state integrated composite school for students in Years 1 to 13, located in Hastings, New Zealand.

Raureka is a suburb of Hastings City, in the Hawke's Bay Region of New Zealand's North Island. The suburb has three council-owned parks: Ebbett Park, St Leonards Park and Whenua Takoha Reserve. Raureka locals established a campaign in 2018 to stop the council selling part of Ebbett Park to developers.Raureka has a community hub with community gardens based at Raureka School.

Nelson Cricket Ground was a cricket ground in Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. The first recorded match held on the ground came in February 1878 when Hawke's Bay played the touring Australians. The New Zealand Times referred to the match as taking place "in Mr Braithwaite's paddock at Hastings, about a mile from the railway station".It was known as the "Heretaunga School ground" until 1913, when the owners, Mr and Mrs W. Nelson, sold it to a trust for use as a sports ground for the local community and it was named Nelson Cricket Ground in their honour. In 1920 the ground was bought by the Hastings Borough Council.The ground held its first first-class match in 1914 when Hawke's Bay played Wellington. Two further first-class matches were held there, one in 1914 when Hawke's Bay played the touring Australians and one in 1915 when Hawke's Bay played Canterbury in the 1914/15 Plunket Shield.Other sports were also played at the ground. The New Zealand and England women's hockey teams played an international there in August 1914 in front of a crowd of 5000.

St Leonards is an inner suburb of Hastings, New Zealand, in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand. It is named for St Leonards-on-Sea, a neighbouring town to Hastings' own English namesake. The suburb is located immediately north and northwest of the city centre, with the city's main road, Heretaunga Street, passing through its centre. St Leonard's Park is a sports field used for touch rugby in summer and football in winter.