POLL: Where should council spend the money?

From left, Jade Holley, Wendy Yeatman and Sue Fox of Featherston out in front of the hall created a petition against the amount of money being spent on it.

"If there's money to be spent we feel it would be best spent on the gateway to Wairarapa," says Sue Fox, part of a Featherston group against the South Wairarapa District Council's plan to inject $3.2 million into the Martinborough Town Hall and Community Centre project.

The group says it is not against the project itself but if there is money to be spent, it should be on the development of Featherston or other core infrastructure projects.

What do you think? Take part in our online poll and have your say in the comments.

BACKGROUND

The project plan is to earthquake strengthen and refurbish the hall, and extend the building so it can house Martinborough's public library, i-Site visitor centre, Toy Library, and Plunket centre, turning it into a community hub at the cost of $6.2 million.

$2.9m, is to come from grants, fundraisers and donations (scroll further down for more detail.)

The rest is to come from the council which plans to sell $1.6m worth of land and property reserves it owns across the district, and also use the money it currently spends on leasing a space for the public library.

The council has already committed $900,000 for the strengthening which will come from rates.

Paul Crimp said if council had not supported the project it was unlikely to get grant funding.

He said there wouldn't be impact on ratepayers and until funding from grants, donations etc, was finalised, any shortfalls were not known.

He said the project is staged so if there is a shortfall, further work can be delayed.

The Martinborough Town Hall working group's feasibility study can be viewed here.