Bring back the mussels

If there’s one thing Havelock is known for – it’s mussels – and one group is working to make sure everyone knows it.

Havelock Vision 2020 is bidding to get more mussel sculptures to decorate the town known as the ‘‘greenshell mussel capital of the world’’.

Vision 2020 chairperson Barbara Faulls said a lot of the mussel sculptures had worn out over time and had been removed.

The only community sculptures that remained were on the roof of the police station and the fire station.

Faulls said they would ideally like to create a trail of mussel sculptures.

‘‘People always used to comment on them and stop to take photos, so we thought it would be a nice idea to bring them back,’’ Faulls said.

The trail would look to lead people around Havelock to key points of the town such as near the marina.

‘‘So we have more of a community feel,’’ Faulls said.

‘‘We always have projects on the go, this is just something quite neat to have on display for locals and visitors.’’

The Havelock Vision committee has applied for funding to buy new sculptures through the creative communities New Zealand arts funding scheme.

Each year Creative New Zealand provides funding to city and district councils for distributing in their area.

The scheme supports more than 1800 projects every year.

The council grants sub-comittee allocates creative funding twice a year with the closing dates at the end of February and September each year.

This was ‘‘round one’’ of the scheme.

The grants sub-committee discussed the application from the Havelock Vision 2020 committee and have recommended $700 be allocated to fund more sculptures in Havelock to ‘‘enhance town vibrancy’’,

Available funds to allocate for round one of the arts funding scheme totalled $42,960.

The council received fourteen applications which totalled $33,533.64, all of which were eligible to be considered for funding.