‘Tired’ hall drags town down

It’s time to ‘‘get the job done’’ and finally revamp a tired town hall in the heart of wine country after 10 years of talking about it.

The primary school in the rapidlygrowing Renwick, in Marlborough, has grown by 200 pupils in the past decade, an example of the town’s population boom.

Yet in that time, or even going back to the 1980s when the community hall opened, the building had ‘‘not changed an awful lot’’.

The Renwick Community Memorial Hall Committee asked for $186,000 last week during the longterm plan process to do up the hall.

Renwick School principal and committee member Simon Heath said the hall was old and ‘‘actually, it isn’t a nice place to be’’.

‘‘Ten years have gone by since I got involved in this work and, you know what, it’s time to get the job done,’’ Heath said.

The hall, located next to Renwick School, served many important functions for Renwick and wider community, Heath said.

‘‘Facilities are booked every day during the school week, most nights during the school week and most weekends,’’ he said.

Heath said Renwick needed a community hall for a ‘‘grown and still growing community’’.

‘‘There’s stuff happening out there, but what’s not keeping up are the facilities to support the community,’’ he said.

‘‘Since 2008, Renwick School has grown by over 200 students. That’s 130 extra families living in Renwick, and that’s only the school part of it.

‘‘That’s an example of how much pressure has come onto Renwick and its facilities.’’

The committee installed a heating system, which cost $94,240 to heat and cool the hall because it was ‘‘too cold to sit in during the winter and too hot to sit in during the summer’’, Heath said.

‘‘We’ve achieved a few things, which we’re very proud of, but now we’ve got to the point where we need some help to get over the line,’’ he said.

Proposed hall upgrades included exterior scaffolding, a new deck, accessible ramp and canopy, upgraded lighting and new plumbing fixtures.

The committee said in its submission it had raised $620,000 to date to assist with the start of the upgrades.

Heath said background work on the desired improvements had been completed ahead of council deliberation, including feasibility, a business plan, resource consent, and building consent.

After meeting all planning costs, the committee set aside $440,000 for hall upgrades and hoped council would provide $186,000 towards the work.

It was estimated that $626,000 would be needed to complete all building works.

When councillor Brian Dawson asked how much life the proposed funds would give the hall, Heath said the committee expected it to be ‘‘up for another 50 years, so long as we can maintain it at the level that it requires’’.

‘‘That’s been the problem for the last 25 years,’’ Heath said. ‘‘It hasn’t been maintained because there was no funding to do that.’’