Pāpāmoa East needs a community centre say campaigners.
Pāpāmoa East needs a community centre say campaigners.
Pāpāmoa East is “desperate” for a community centre to help with increasing social issues in the fast-growing Tauranga suburb, campaigners say.
The Wairakei Community Centre Trust chairman Brian Cavit said the trust has a long-standing agreement with Tauranga City Council to build a facility in Pāpāmoa East.
Cavit and Pāpāmoa East Anglican Mission Rev Sandra Johnston asked the council to consider their proposal again at a council meeting on Monday.
Johnston said when Pāpāmoa was recently voted as the country’s best suburb in Trade Me Property’s People’s Choicest Awards it was with a sense of “elation and despair”.
“Like homes where you don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors, that also applies to Pāpāmoa.”
Johnston is an Australasian accredited trauma specialist and said what came across her desk daily “would make your hair curl”.
There was a part of Pāpāmoa in “desperate need of social services”, she said.
The trip to social services was a "bridge too far" for some Pāpāmoa East residents. Photo / RNZ
The up to 20km trip to the nearest Work and Income office or probation service in Mount Maunganui was a “bridge too far” for some people, Johnston said.
Social issues in Pāpāmoa included loneliness, isolation and domestic violence, she said.
“We desperately need a community centre down in Pāpāmoa East.
“The older people are saying there’s no heart in Pāpāmoa. There’s no one centre where they can go and just go to be together as a group.”
The library and community centre at Domain Rd and pavilion at Gordon Spratt Reserve were too far away for people in Pāpāmoa East, she said.
A woman Johnston provided food to before Christmas said her children would be getting memories as presents because her rent was $990 a week so they couldn’t afford gifts.
“That’s the part of Pāpāmoa that’s not being seen, and it’s quite scary.”
There needed to be a place where people of all cultures and faiths could go to access social services.
Pāpāmoa is Tauranga's largest suburb with an estimated population of 37,800. Photo / George Novak
“They need somewhere they can call Pāpāmoa’s heart, and we need that heart now not in five years' time.”
Pāpāmoa East/Wairakei being behind Merivale and Gate Pā as a priority suburb for a community centre was “very worrying” because the population would keep growing, she said.
Pāpāmoa East/Wairakei had a population of 9662 in 2023. This was expected to reach 14,495 by 2033, according to council data.
The council’s 2023 community centre action plan had provision for a $12.4 million community centre in Pāpāmoa East to be built in 2031/32. This was budgeted for in the current long-term plan.
Councillor Glen Crowther asked how urgent the need for a centre was.
Johnston said it needed to be prioritised in the next annual plan based on the work she dealt with on a daily basis and the information she had from GPs, counsellors and psychologists and social services.
Tauranga City councillor Rod Taylor. Photo / David Hall
Councillor Rod Taylor asked where the church operated from currently.
Johnston said it ran out of a medical centre, but the lease was up in June.
“We disappear because there’s nowhere we can afford in Pāpāmoa, the rents are so high.”
The church had to “pick up the slack” after their social services arm, Anglican Care Waiapu, closed its service at Hartford Ave in 2023, she said.
“That’s a few people doing an inordinate amount of work.
“I’m not the only one, all of the ministers on the Pāpāmoa strip are saying help.
“We need a community centre.”
General manager community services Barbara Dempsey said the council’s community development teams worked with non-governmental organisations to try to facilitate support for particular areas.
- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
