Funding for Foxton

Foxton is to receive $3.86 million from the Provincial Growth Fund to help boost the Horowhenua town’s fortunes.

The funding is to build more visitor amenities, and improve public spaces and the health of the Manawatu¯ River Loop.

“This funding for the Foxton regeneration project will be used to make the well-known holiday town even more attractive for visitors and create employment opportunities in the region,” Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said yesterday.

It will also be used for dredging and riparian planting on the Foxton River Loop section of the Manawatu¯ River to add another attraction and accelerate planning for the next phases of the town’s regeneration project.

Jones said more money would be required to restore the river loop and was likely to come from a fund associated with polluted waterways.

He said there was a level of flexibility in the growth fund allocation, so money could be used as local government decided it was appropriate.

“This project will also have a positive environmental impact, as the area is home to estuary and migratory wildlife that will benefit from a healthier river environment.

‘‘I am pleased to be announcing funding that enables the Foxton community to make progress towards the brighter, more sustainable future they have advocated for.’’

Horowhenua mayor Bernie Wanden said he welcomed the money to bring the life back to the river loop.

‘‘It will provide a better experience for not only those visiting, but those who live here, who are fiercely Foxton proud and who have been dreaming of this for a long time.’’

Foxton River Loop Working Party member and Save Our River Trust chairman Robin Hapi said the grant served as encouragement to the community who fought for so long to have the river returned as the inherited treasure of Foxton.

‘‘We are a community that has carried a grievance of the inaction of government for many many years,’’ he said.

Hapi said this was the first central government assistance since disastrous flood control efforts in 1943.

He said the new funding was an example of the force that can be exerted when people came together

Hayden Turoa, from Ngati Raukawa, said he was looking forward to seeing how the Maori development opportunities would be progressed.

In recent years Foxton’s main street has been upgraded and community centre Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom has opened.