Deerstalkers hit brick wall on rates

Wairarapa deerstalkers have failed to get outright rates relief on their Parkvale Hall headquarters.

Carterton district councillors turned down the request from the Wairarapa branch of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association at a full council meeting on Wednesday, council chief executive Colin Wright said.

Deerstalkers took over the then dilapidated hall from the Parkvale Hall Society in 1999 and have since poured tens of thousands of dollars worth of material and labour into repairing and upgrading the building, inside and out.

An earlier Wairarapa Times-Age story outlined a letter branch president Duncan Simpson wrote to the council, seeking rates relief on the grounds the hall was an often-used community asset that served a broad section of the Carterton population.

The deerstalkers' request was turned down because council policy held the group to be similar to sporting clubs that qualified for a 50 per cent rates cut, Mr Wright said.

Parkvale Hall, in that respect, "was no different to the Gladstone Sports Complex or tennis clubs" or any other building owned and operated by a sports group.

The hall also had "fallen off the radar for about a decade" during which time rates were never charged, he said, although no outstanding amount was owed or sought.

Councillors had promised to help out the hunters with the hall, using "other means in kind", and the refusal to waive rates for the group also had avoided setting a precedent.