Regional Sporting Facilities Rate allocated

The Northland Regional Council (NRC) has allocated $3.8 million to be paid out over the next three years under the latest round of funding from its Regional Sporting Facilities Rate.

Chair Penny Smart says this round’s beneficiaries include Whangarei’s Pohe Island Bike Park (up to $600,000 from September 2021) and Sportsville Kaikohe Stage 2 (up to $1.4 million from November 2022).

Rounding out the allocations are the Whangarei District’s Northland Football Hub Stage 1; (up to $1M from August 2023) and the football hub Stage 2 (up to $800,000 from June 2024).

Chair Smart says although no Kaipara projects are funded in this round, projects in the district had received $600,000 via Sportsville Dargaville in 2018 and $500,000 for the Mangawhai Activity Zone in 2019.

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.

The Pohe Island Bike Park has already received $830,000 NRC funding this year and construction is almost complete on a cycle circuit track, pump tracks, mountain bike skills track and nationally recognised BMX track.

It has a BMX track and pump track designed to host national and international events

The $600,000 it will receive from September this year is required to complete a covered learn-to-ride area and finishing works.

Meanwhile, Kaikohe Sportsville has already installed night lights with a $100,000 sports rate payment in 2018. It has just been allocated another $1.4M in 2022 for a comprehensive multi-sports hub at Lindvart Park.

The works consists of six sub areas featuring sports fields, courts, other outdoor activities and amenities and a central multi-sport facility.

Preliminary design is complete, resource consent lodged and $9M has been secured of the estimated $12M build cost.

Lastly, the Northland Football Hub is to receive two payments, one of $1M in 2023 for Stage 1 and another of $800,000 in 2024 for Stage 2.

The money will be used to provide a regional facility for player, coach and referee development.

The work will allow improved facilities for the club to meet growing player numbers; facilities of a scale and quality appropriate for hosting regional and national football tournaments; and the facilities and football pitch necessary for playing all levels of representative football.

Longer term, the Northland Football Hub will also include an all-weather artificial turf.

Chair Smart says when the latest allocations are considered, the NRC would have distributed just under $7.6M of Regional Sporting Facilities Rate money over a six-year period.

Although the rate is regionwide and grant sums do not need to return to those districts from which they were collected, there has been a good match of district allocation to district collection.

Of the roughly $7.6M sporting rates collected over the six-year period, $1,139,952 would have been collected from – and $1.1M allocated to – Kaipara projects. In the Far North $2,984,779 would have been collected and $2.9M allocated and in Whangarei $3,520,229 would have been collected and $3.58M allocated.