Nelson Weekly Locally Owned and Operated
Tuesday 23 February 2016
Perfect day for wine PLAY F TBALL Page 7 IN 2016 PAGES 22-23 and food fest
Airport’s best ever month
Andrew Board
Nelson Airport has recorded its busiest month ever, with a whopping 22 per cent increase on passenger numbers from the same time last year. That saw 78,509 people either fly in or out of the airport during January and follows on from a record December the month before. But it wasn’t the only good news the airport announced this week, 2015 was also a record year, with 778,384 passengers passing through the airport. It beat 2014 by more than 10,000 passengers. Three new airlines to the region is the major reason for the huge jump in passenger numbers, but it is putting pressure on the airport’s infrastructure. Plans for a new airport ter-
Big crowd turns out for Warriors
Grandma and granddaughter celebrate their 18th birthdays just days apart Simon Bloomberg
minal are progressing well for a 2018 opening, but Nelson Airport manager Rob Evans says they couldn’t wait that long for a car park upgrade due to the terminal’s heavy use. “The front of the terminal is really quite dangerous at the moment. There’s a lot of mixed traffic going on, with people trying to jostle around. There’s a high volume of people trying to cross the crossing to the short term car parking and it’s actually becoming a real health and safety issue.” So the current short term parking will become more space for rental cars, where demand has dramatically jumped. The short term parking will move to a section of the current long term parking section.
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Jean Young and her granddaughter Holly Young. Both will celebrate their 18th birthday this week. Photo: Andrew Board.
Not too many teenage girls celebrate the same birthday on the same day as their grandmother but that’s exactly what happened when Stoke’s Holly Young and her nana Jean Young blew out the candles on their 18th birthday cake on Sunday. That may sounds a bit like a game show riddle but there’s actually a perfectly good explanation with Jean being born on a leap day back in 1944. Although the East Taieri grandmother is actually turning 72, she will officially be celebrating her 18th birthday alongside Holly who turns a slightly younger version of 18 on February 22. “We’ll both be 18 so we’ll be old enough to go have a drink in the pub to celebrate,” Jean joked. “The girls all think it’s a great laugh.” Holly says “it’s awesome” that she is sharing her 18th birthday with her grandmother and admits she has had a few strange looks
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