‘They just troll round’: Timaru councillor homes in on community groups

Monday, 21 April 2025

A Timaru councillor wants his council to stop giving grants to community groups and says he does not support dishing out borrowed money.

Councillor Allan Booth said he wanted to see a stop to the practice of giving funds to groups who were always looking for “free money”.

“What I don’t particularly like at all is the fact … we’re borrowing all that money to give away on behalf of the ratepayers,” Booth said.

“So, in my mind it should all stop and everything just needs to stand on its own, and while we’re borrowing the money I just don’t feel comfortable with that at all.”

Booth’s comments came at Tuesday’s Timaru District Council community services committee meeting, during which councillors signed off on the latest round of community funding.

With applications for community development totalling more than $175,000, and requests for another $14,800 for local events, a recommendation was made that councillors only sign off on funding of $57,500.

The council’s community funding subcommittee met on April 8 to consider 14 applications for funding, with a total of $61,743.94 available for 2024-25.

Community funding adviser Naomi Scott presented the subcommittee’s recommendation to fund seven community development requests, and one local event.

Of those, it recommended only fully funding two — one from the Timaru Host Lions Club for $30,000 for its Alexandra lifeboat project and another for $3000 from the Muscular Dystrophy Association South Island for field worker support services.

Nine applications were turned down.

They were from: South Canterbury Traction Engine and Transport Museum Incorporated, $30,000 for engine repairs and shed extension; John Anderson Arboretum, $8710 for the Block C development; Cancer Society of NZ Canterbury West Coast division, $30,000 for operational costs; Stopping Violence Services, $12,000 for programme delivery; Te Aitarakihi, $1300 for mahau concreting; Christchurch City Mission, $10,000 for Timaru programmes; and Glorivale Leavers’ Trust, $10,000 for operational costs.

Both events turned down were requests from Te Aitarakihi — $5557 for Māori Language Week programmes and $5310 for Matariki 2025.

During the same meeting, councillors also discussed whether to continue an agreement with The Y to provide youth services in the district. They agreed to delay their decision.

Following that, Booth homed in on the funding of community services saying the council got the same applications from the same groups every year.

“And it’s like they just troll round and find those applications, opportunities to get free money,” he said.

“So, you know what my decision will be around this.”

Councillor Michelle Pye asked Scott if future reports could include the reason for an application being declined.

“When you just say ‘decline’, I kind of thought we’d talked about just putting a very short comment ‘did not meet the criteria’ or ‘funding from other sources’ or ‘no funds available’ or something,” she said.

“Just to go ‘decline’, and I know we’ve got to trust the subcommittee’s recommendation, but we’re the ones approving it and we have no idea why we’re declining some of these things.”

Scott said it was a valid point and it had been discussed at the time.

“As you can see this round was severely oversubscribed for the amount.”

She said more detail could be provided to the applicants but she could also ask the subcommittee for more information.