Squash club gets remaining $200K Sporting Facilities Rate

22 Oct 2021, 12:25 PM

The Northland Regional Council is to give $205,550 of unallocated Regional Sporting Facilities Rate from 2018-2021 to a Kerikeri Squash Club project to build a district facility for squash.

Chair Penny Smart says the council had collected just under $4M via the rate in 2018-2021, all but $205,550 of which had been allocated to various Northland sporting projects.

The council had decided to allocate the remaining funding to the squash club which is building a new four-court squash facility to replace a two-court community facility destroyed by fire in 2016.

The facility will expand on the Kerikeri Sports Complex, sharing facilities with rugby and netball clubs.

Of the already allocated 2018-2021 funding, $600,000 had gone to Sportsville Dargaville in 2018 and $100,000 to Sportsville Kaikohe Stage One the same year. In 2019, $500,000 had gone to the Mangawhai Activity Zone. This year had seen (or would see before the year is out) $350,000 go to Pohe Island Sports Hub Rugby and $830,000 to Pohe Island Sports Hub Bike Park Stage One. Over the period June 2021 to March 2022 a final $1.4M would go to Te Hiku Sports Hub.

The regional council announces the funding in advance of the rates that fund them being collected to give receiving organisations a degree of certainty to plan and a platform to apply for funding from other parties.

Last month (September) it announced the latest tranche of $3.8M funding for 2021 to 2024. Beneficiaries included Whangarei’s Pohe Island Bike Park Stage Two (up to $600,000 from September 2021) and Sportsville Kaikohe Stage Two (up to $1.4 million from November 2022).

Rounding out the allocations are the Whangarei District’s Northland Football Hub Stage One; (up to $1M from August 2023) and the football hub Stage Two (up to $800,000 from June 2024).