Golden Bay rec centre ‘losing money’ over lack of car parks: councillor

The new Golden Bay Recreation Centre should be opened fully despite a shortage of car parks, according to Tasman district councillor Paul Sangster.

‘‘I just think this is ridiculous,’’ Sangster told his fellow councillors on Thursday. ‘‘We’ve built a building, we actually own it ... and we should be using it.’’

In March, TDC issued a partial Certificate of Public Use (CPU) for the recreation centre, which allowed access to parts of the new building.

The council said it could not issue a full CPU because not all of the car parks required by the building consent under the Tasman Resource Management Plan (TRMP) were available.

The adjacent grandstand occupies some of the space earmarked for the additional car parks. Its planned demolition has been the subject of court proceedings and a trust set up to save it was last month given three months to complete a restoration programme for the structure.

Sangster questioned whether there was a way to get the rec centre fully opened.

‘‘To be honest with you, we are sitting in a building without sufficient car parking,’’ he said.

‘‘I understand we paid a fine so maybe we could pay a fine and open our new building in Takaka.’’

Sangster was referring to news in August 2016 that TDC had paid itself more than $200,000 for a shortage of car parks at its office in Richmond. Corporate services manager Mike Drummond told councillors last August that TDC was 14 car parks short under the rules of the TRMP.

The shortfall came after an extension of the Richmond office in 2012 ‘‘principally to allow us sufficient office space to bring engineering services back in house’’.

‘‘We have worked over several years to reduce that number in terms of parking opportunities [and] parking layout but at the end of the day, we were 14 car parks short so, like other commercial activities, we needed to pay ourselves for those 14 car parks,’’ Drummond said at the time.

At $15,157 a park, the bill was $212,198.

This was paid from the property section of the council to its engineering services department.

On Thursday, Sangster said the rec centre was losing money. Some weddings had been turned down.

‘‘We’ve got the fire brigade do in November that’s now gone to the school hall,’’ he said. ‘‘I really hope I get enough support to have that building opened.’’

The Golden Bay Ward councillor said that he believed people would find a space to park.

‘‘I just don’t understand what is holding it up other than perhaps a little bit of past.’’