Whanganui District councillors vote against fast-tracking community funding

The aspirations and projects committee was set up at the behest of Mayor Andrew Tripe. Photo / Bevan Conley

Community organisations after some quick council cash for projects will have to wait.

Groups can present business cases to the Whanganui District Council’s aspirations and projects committee but the committee isn’t able to dish out money.

It will stay that way following a vote at a council meeting this week.

Council chief executive David Langford said committee members requested a mechanism to grant relatively small funding requests so projects could get underway “at an accelerated rate”.

One example was the Bushy Park Tarapuruhi Trust and Wanganui Tramping Club, who wanted to develop a management plan for the stewardship and restoration of the council-owned Waitahinga reserve.

They were after $5000 per year for three years.

Council officers recommended the mechanism not be granted, Langford told a council meeting this week.

Councillors also voted against it and cases will continue to be put forward for consideration in the council’s long-term plan (LTP) for 2024-2034.

“There are already multiple pathways for community groups to come and get funding, either through the LTP/ annual plan process or through the community grant funding processes that already exist,” Langford said.

“Or, if there is a particularly compelling case for something, a report directly to council can be made at any time for approval of unbudgeted expenditure.”

Langford said officers wanted the community to be able to drip-feed ideas into the council, rather than having a surge of hundreds of business cases to be written for the next LTP.

“For good reason, the council puts together LTPs because there is a need for discipline with public spending and structure, and that we don’t have ad hocery constantly moving the rates requirement and pushing us further into debt.”

Mayor Andrew Tripe said community-led projects were a way of the future.

“We are looking at central government to trust us a bit more so therefore, we should trust our community to get on with things as well, and empower them.

‘We want to move at pace but the progress in local government does tend to be a bit slower, for good reason. We don’t want to be seen as gung-ho.”

He didn’t support the mechanism and said he sensed current grants were frequent enough for community-led projects to get things done.

The committee is new at council, set up at the behest of Tripe following last October’s local election.

Deputy Mayor Helen Craig said applying for funding through the LTP was “very long-tail” and it would be great to be more nimble.

She suggested putting a block of funding aside - $50,000 or $100,000 - that would be available for distribution once a year.

Langford said using existing funding mechanisms but boosting their budgets was an option.

“They are consistently over-subscribed.

“Through this (committee) process, we have also unlocked a little bit of latent aspiration from the community, so you are getting more requests than normal.”

Committee chair Rob Vinsen said groups presenting business cases usually needed “an answer pretty soon” when it came to funding.

“I haven’t been given an indication that they’ve been given any answer,” he said.

Langford said officers had redirected some projects to community grant funds.

However, they believed it was better to allow groups to speak to the committee, rather than making a judgement call and saying no, he said.

All requests for capital funding through the LTP came in at just over $500m.

“I don’t believe the council can do all of it, so there needs to be some prioritisation calls made,” Langford said.

Mike Tweed is an assistant news director and multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.