Central Plateau Emergency Management Facility construction starts after four years of planning and fundraising

Ruapehu mayor Weston Kirton cuts the first ground in the construction of the Central Plateau Emergency Management Facility. Photo / Supplied

Construction has started on the Central Plateau Emergency Management Facility in National Park Village, with the aim of providing a central point for search and rescue and emergency operations.

The facility has been in the planning and fundraising stages for four years, and work on-site began after a blessing by local iwi and mana whenua.

Once fully funded and operational, the 288-square metre facility will provide a modern incident control point, training space, equipment store, and staging area for search and rescue (SAR) and emergency management in the Central Plateau. It will be the home of the Ruapehu Alpine Rescue Organisation (RARO), Ruapehu Land Search and Rescue Group, and Ruapehu Civil Defence.

Ruapehu Emergency Services Charitable Trust (RESCT) chairman Conrad Smith said the facility would enable much faster, better co-ordinated and more effective responses to emergencies for Ruapehu communities and visitors.

"The facility will provide vital emergency management infrastructure to one of the busiest search and rescue sectors in the country, and an area prone to significant natural disasters," Smith said.

"It will be an absolute game-changer for emergency management in the Ruapehu district [and] we are all really excited to be at this point."

The building will be located on the edge of the National Park School field in Buddo St.

The central location was chosen to best serve the search and rescue and emergency management needs of the whole district.

The site was provided by the Ministry of Education with support from Ruapehu charitable trust Uenuku.

Ruapehu mayor Weston Kirton cut the first ground on the site.

"We are grateful for the support of the local school on whose field the facility will be sited, and the local iwi and kaitiaki of the land whose contribution has been invaluable," Smith said.

While construction has started, more funding is required to complete it.

Organisations across Ruapehu have donated grants and support to the project, with key supporter King Country Trust having donated $238,000.

However, RESCT requires a further $300,000 to complete the building to operational specifications.

Smith said the trust was confident that with further support from businesses, philanthropists and the Ruapehu community, they would soon realise the full vision of the facility.

"We're getting really close to the finish line now – at this stage in the project, any funding will have a huge impact," he said.

If people want to donate to the project, they can contact Smith at contactresct@gmail.com.

The RESCT trustees thanked and acknowledged the organisations that had made the project possible - King Country Trust, Ruapehu Alpine Rescue Organisation, Whanganui Community Foundation, Transpower CommunityCare Fund, Ruapehu Land Search and Rescue, a private client charitable grant stewarded by Perpetual Guardian, R and H Ebbett, and Victory Events.