The public will be able to have its say on the future of the Oamaru Licensing Trust, which has just received a strategic review on its operations from consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The review, carried out by consultants with expertise in the hotel and liquor industry, was received by the trust in the public-excluded portion of its board meeting on Thursday night.
Trust chairman Ali Brosnan said yesterday the review proposed several options for the trust to consider.
Because of the complexity and importance of the decisions, the review would need to be considered by the board in depth over the next month.
However, before decisions were made, Mr Brosnan said the public would have an opportunity to have its say.
What process would be used for that was still to be decided.
Mr Brosnan said the review remained confidential because of commercial sensitivity.
The review was to have been presented to the trust board last month, but was delayed because of the February 22 earthquake, which had an impact on the consultants' offices in Christchurch.
It follows a loss of $511,607 in the last financial year, mostly caused by changes in tax laws on depreciation of buildings after the trust had invested about $4 million in the Northstar motel-restaurant-bar complex in north Oamaru.
In the 2008-09 financial year, the trust had a $282,000 loss.
The trust owns four premises in Oamaru - the Kingsgate Brydone Hotel, Fahrenheit Bar, the Oast House outlet and the Northstar motel-restaurant-bar complex.
It is also in the planning stage to move its management back to Oamaru after the Ashburton Licensing Trust decided not to renew the management contract it has held for the last five years.
Six people attended the public section of the trust's board meeting on Thursday night, a dwindling number compared with its annual meeting in November, when 23 people were present, and its February board meeting, which was attended by 12 people.
Before that, annual meetings and monthly meetings had no public attendances.
