Waimea Weekly
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Wednesday 15 October 2014
Locals supporting locals
Racing success Page 11
Dam will bankrupt farmer
Waimea Plains farmer, Hugh Challies, will face “an economic death sentence” and have to walk off the land if the Tasman District Council goes ahead with a proposal to increase his rates by up to 429 per cent to fund the Waimea Community Dam. Hugh is one of a number of small water consent holders on the Waimea Plains objecting to the proposed rates increases that will be required to fund the $76.4 million dam in the Lee Valley. Under the funding options presented by council last week, Hugh faces an annual rates increase of between $59,000 and $86,000 which he says will bankrupt his small sheep and dairy cattle grazing property on the banks of the Waimea River. “There is no way we can generate enough income to pay such a big increase in rates. Council is saying everyone needs to intensify their land
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Simon Bloomberg
Senior reporter Reporter
simon@waimeaweekly.co.nz
use when the dam goes in but almost half our property is low-lying wet land and is only suitable for grazing we couldn’t intensify even if we wanted to. “We have all our life savings invested in our property and if the dam goes ahead we’ll have to walk off the land. We wouldn’t get a lot if we sold it either because we believe this is going to trigger a collapse in land values.” Hugh says the absurdity of the council’s proposal is highlighted by the fact that the rates increase for his property would be “enough to buy enough supplementary feed for his stock for two droughts and they expect me to pay that in one year”. Waimea Plains lifestyle
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Wakefield’s Nicole Preller has donated funds she raised for the World Challenge to help Adelaide Ketel. Photo: Simon Bloomberg.
Teen donates funds to sick child Simon Bloomberg
Wakefield’s Nicole Preller turned her own disappointment into joy when she donated $2022 to help the family of 21-month-old Adelaide Ketel who is undergoing treatment for cancer. Nicole had been fundraising to travel to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for the World Challenge with Waimea
College next year. But the 16-yearold student was forced to abandon her travel plans after deciding to leave school and instead donated the proceeds of her fundraising efforts to help Adelaide. “I’m leaving school at the end of the year to study at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology so I couldn’t go to the World Challenge. I was disappointed about that but,
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in a way, it turned out well because the money I raised went to such a good cause.” Because Nicole raised most of the funds through selling raffles and fudge at her parents cafe, the Wakefield Villa Tearooms, she put up a notice in the cafe advising clients about her decision.
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