Electricity Corporation of New Zealand operations workforce. In 1999, Meridian Energy, which had inherited the local assets, moved its operations base from Twizel to Christchurch. In 2009, the community were consulted in a workshop to identify issues and gaps in services that residents felt existed. Issues identified included the viability of emergency services, accessibility of health services, residential care for the elderly, access to dental care and drug and alcohol services. In 2015, the new $1.8 million Twizel Medical Centre was completed. This included a helipad in order to transport sick patients to hospital via helicopter. Meridian Energy provided $150,000 funding for the helipad. A building boom occurred in 2017 with five new subdivisions all sold and a busy construction industry. Financial support to build an aviary near Twizel in order to support the conservation of the black stilt (kakī) was provided in 2017 by the Sangreal Foundation. The captive breeding program in Twizel (and Christchurch) was a success in 2021 with 150 juvenile black stilt (kakī) being released into the wild. The 2021 breeding season was also deemed a success with eighteen black stilt chicks hatching over the Christmas period. By early 2019, tourism played an important part in the economy of Twizel. By this stage, tourists had spent one million overnight stays in the town, unemployment was sitting at less than 1% and employers could not recruit for jobs. Twizel would get very busy during the summer months and during rowing events. Twizel's population is expected to grow by 2.6% each year between 2020 and 2050. with the population expected to grow to 3395 people in the year 2050. The Mackenzie District Council presented three options for how the town could evolve with the growth. in October 2020. Local residents provided negative feedback to the plans with complaints that they were too similar and said that the population growth was underestimated.In January 2021, there were concerns that the display of earth moving vehicles, that was used in the Waitaki hydroelectric power projects, at the entrance to the town were unsafe. A report recommended that the vehicles were either fenced off or brought up to the standards that playgrounds are expected to be at. In May 2021, work began on a $6.5 million project to replace the asbestos cement water pipes with polyethylene pipes as the old pipes had reached the end of their useful life. Demographics Twizel is