During its meeting in Tapanui yesterday, the West Otago Community Board voted to grant the West Otago Community Centre upgrade project the "significant" sum towards an imminent second phase of refurbishments.
The 30-year-old Tapanui facility has been suffering from leaky roofing and is also undergoing major upgrades to its theatre and interiors as part of the project.
Yesterday, facility chairman Robert Kane described the news as "bloody brilliant".
"We’re about to be moving into phase 2 of the project at the end of the month, so to get the go-ahead like this is just excellent.
"We’re very, very happy with the decision the board has made to support this critical facility, as this is a great building, used by all of the community, all of the time."
A successful first stage of the project concluded recently, reroofing the theatre and upgrading support systems for $450,000.
During stage 2 the main hall-gymnasium and squash courts will be reroofed, at an anticipated cost of $400,000.
During yesterday’s meeting, Cr John Herbert said he was strongly in support of making the grant, which will come from a combination of the board’s project funds and commonage funds.
"If you wind back the clock to 1989, we were allowed to keep the commonage land as it would help to pay off the original loan for the community centre," he said.
"Since that time, we’ve held true to that fund going towards community projects, and now this essential building needs support once again. We need to fix it."
Cr Lloyd McCall expressed concern the grant might empty the board’s reserves until further income arose, but council service delivery group manager Jules Witt said a further $29,000 would remain available for other projects in the meantime.
A vote to approve the grant was passed unanimously.
