A district-wide sports and recreation quango (“semi-autonomous non-government body, partly public funded”) has been granted $161,200 over two years as set-up funding by councillors – some of whom see it as “an incredible investment” in health and well-being.
After a debate which at times veered towards being risk averse and ditching the proposal, council’s Strategy Working Committee moved:
“Council approve funding of $161,200 over two years to facilitate the establishment and delivery of a South Wairarapa sports and recreation service.”
Only Mayor Martin Connelly and councillor Aidan Ellims voted no. The approval overturned an earlier decision not to fund a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the establishment body.
The council will now provide “seed funding” for a two-year start-up, and “further down the track” the project “could become self-perpetuating or self-funding,” councillor Rebecca Gray told the meeting. It would be a body that facilitates, “to help others to do for themselves.”
“I cannot think of a much better return on investment in terms of health and wellness than sports and recreation.
From a clinical health point of view, a mental health point of view and building the community – a small amount of money is an incredible investment in health and wellness,” she said.
“It is not going to be totally easy from here and not have any risks. There are ways this might not work out but we won’t know those if we don’t at least give it a try. This is a way of mitigating some of the risks that already exist.” Gray moved the “re-litigation” of council’s earlier rejection of the funding.
Alistair Plimmer said the community had suffered a serious shock through the Covid dislocation, with kids still disengaged, not going to school.
“Sport and recreation is one of those things which can get those kids back into line. Our society has taken a real shock … and a profound impact.”
He noted community consultation on the proposal had gotten “a really positive return. Nearly 50 percent of all clubs in South Wairarapa responded _ and of that 85 percent said ‘yes, we want this.’”
“That is bigger than any (other) consultation … the biggest engagement I’ve had since I have been sitting round this (council) table.
“We under-estimate that at our peril. This is one of things we can do … as a council, say we’re supporting our community, we want to see change, we want to see kids not walking the streets, going to school … playing sport, we want to see them growing into the next generation.”
“This is a thing that can make a big change.”
The sports support programme is “an investment, not a cost,” he added, noting that it had taken a “lot of work” behind the scenes over 25 years for Greytown to have “the biggest engagement in sport in primary school in the country.”
“If we say no to this … we’re actually saying we don’t value this … as a society. This is much more than just handing out some money for a club to survive for 12 months. It’s saying this is how we’re going to engage our young people and our older people.”
Colin Olds said he has “always been a supporter of a co-ordinated approach to sport and recreation across South Wairarapa.
“Council has an obligation – we own the (sports) grounds these recreational activities occur on … and I’ve always been of a mindset we should be employing someone ourselves in-house to do the co-ordination of sporting grounds, work with the sporting clubs and assist them where necessary.”
Mayor Connelly opposed funding the project, noting “this is a council which is stretched financially and also where many, many people are very,
very stretched.”
Given the option of spending money on sport and recreation and road safety improvements, “I personally would prefer it go on road safety measures. (But) we have to find some resolution on trying to keep rates down as low as possible.”
“I’m not doing anything to increase spending without a good value proposition,” so spending $80,000 a year on improving road safety would be a better plan.
Martin Bosley said “in good faith” the council had consulted the community “and we got one of the highest levels of engagement – we got 75 percent who responded they wanted something like this.”
That positive support had come “not just from the cricket club, the hockey club or whatever … it was a really broad cross-section … of organisations saying ‘we want this.’”
“The feedback we got was overwhelming that we have to do this…. This will have a profound impact on the wider South Wairarapa community.”
Aaron Woodcock noted that “95 percent of people (who responded during consultation), that’s huge,”
as was 50 percent of clubs, given the process was done in part “out of season” and during the Christmas close-down.
Ellims said “there is no governance structure” set out in the design, “no constitution and nothing to show how it (the tender process to establish the body) will work out.”
Officials responded that a governance structure and “KPIs” (Key Performance Indicators) were not part of the project outline they had been asked to design.
