All weather track running out of time

BY WALT DICKSON

The proposed all-weather athletics track in Masterton is on shaky ground as potential funding avenues dry up.

Chair of the Wairarapa Regional All Weather Track Trust (WRAWTT), Jonathan Hooker, says if there are no significant funding developments in the next six weeks the trust would "seriously have to start looking at the viability of continuing".

Work on the proposed $1 million 8-lane track, to be built at the Colin Pugh Sports Bowl, had been planned to get under way earlier this year and completed in April. But the first sod is yet to be turned as WRAWTT struggles to come up with the cash.

Mr Hooker, a Masterton councillor, says big hopes were pinned on Trust House coming to the party, but that grant application, believed to be $300,000, was turned down.

Similarly, WRAWTT has had no luck with lotteries applications or Eastern and Central Community Trust.

"The ECCT application is still live but they are reluctant to commit until we can show them that all the [other] money has been raised," Mr Hooker says.

Last year, Pelorus Trust pledged $50,000 and WRAWTT is now waiting on a positive outcome from its grant application to Prime Community Trust.

Mr Hooker says there has been a "tremendous" response from the public.

The Masterton District Council has committed $300,000, conditional on WRAWTT raising a minimum of $50,000 in the Wairarapa community, a target already achieved.

- Wairarapa News