Community workers desperate for new premises face a major setback after a funding request was turned down.

The Great Potentials Trust asked the Papakura Local Board for a grant to build a community centre alongside its early childhood centre soon to be built in Takanini's Oakleigh Ave.

Many community programmes, including Plunket and afterschool care, are run out of Takanini Primary School and space is running out.

School spokeswoman Linda Kelly told the local board the community didn't want "to be like Randwick Park and have a murder before we get good community facilities".

The Great Potentials Trust is well-respected and would be the ideal candidate for such a centre, she said.

But the request was declined after advisers told the board the $400,000 required would have to be taken from funds earmarked for a new Papakura Community Centre.

Board chairwoman Hine Joyce-Tahere said the board agreed Takanini had "large pockets of deprivation" which needed the support a community centre would provide.

The Papakura Community Centre would be too far away to serve Takanini families without easy access to transport, she said.

The future of the Takanini centre is still open for discussion, including the possibility of attaching it to the Takanini library, which is hoped to be completed in 2016. Deputy chairman Brent Catchpole said that would create a hub "where everyone can congregate".

Funding for a report on such a move will not be available until next year.

- © Fairfax NZ News