Trust supporters seek answers

Supporters of the Devonport Peninsula Trust (DPT) want an explanation from the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board about its decision to axe trust funding.

The local board told the trust last week that all of its board funding would be cut for the next financial year, throwing the trust’s future into doubt.

Around 35 people, who attended a public meeting on the issue at the Devonport Yacht Club last week, voted to form a working group and seek an explanation for the local-board decision before it is confirmed next Tuesday 18 July.

Another vote on putting the trust into hibernation received no support.

Views expressed at the meeting ranged from anger at the removal of funding to hope that new sources of support might be found.

The DPT runs events such as the Midwinter Dip, Halloween Trail, Santa Parade and a range of Matariki celebrations, as well as community-building exercises like children’s playgroups and summer athletics.

It employs three part-time employees: a manager, community-events manager and a summer-events coordinator.

In response to its defunding, it has given redundancy notices to staff, though with $12,000 to wind up its operations, it has enough to pay their wages for a further two-and-a-half months.

DPT manager, Nigel Bioletti told the meeting that though the organisation knew major cuts were coming, he was “gobsmacked” to learn it would be axed completely.

DPT chair Iain Rea said the decision was a great surprise to the whole trust board.

The trust’s main priority was to talk with the local board to understand its thinking.

Rea hoped that the parties “might find some opportunities that are mutually beneficial”.

Other strategies discussed at the meeting included ways of telling the board about the trust’s value, and of looking for new funding sources to plug the hole left by the cut.

One attendee questioned why the deprioritisation of events was given as a reason for the funding cut when the Takapuna Beach Business Association would still receive event funding from the local board.

The trust received $110,000 in local-board funding for 2022-23, plus $18,000 in separate events funding.

Half of the money saved from defunding the DPT and its northern counterpart, the Takapuna North Community Trust, will go towards funding two community coordinators, based at the Devonport Community House and Sunnynook Community Centre.