Hon STUART NASH: Work on this project first began in 2009, when local business Methven Adventures Ltd and its predecessors started the design, feasibility, and resource consent work. They enlisted backing from local government in the Canterbury Mayoral Forum, and took a strategic approach to focus on a wider seasonal spread of visitors across the region and the South Island. These are precisely the sorts of projects that align with the objectives of the Provincial Growth Fund and the Government's regional economic development strategy, so financing backing from the Government made perfect sense. As Methven tourism and business leader Dave Dynes said yesterday, and I quote, "The Government's belief in what we were doing, the Government's reasons for putting their money behind it, was really good, and if we hadn't got that, the project would have been dead in the water."