These were some of the topics dicussed. See below for a link to the full minutes.

Meet the Candidates meetings

We will be holding a meeting (or meetings) for local body election candidates at the Salvation Army Hall in September. We are waiting to see how many candidates there are, and whether we split into separate meetings for the Mayor, WCC Paekawakawa/Southern Ward and GWRC or try for some combination. 

Workingmens Bowling Club site, Owen St

Jane Patterson (NRA Vice President) outlined progress on plans for community use of the site. The Sustainability Trust made a successful funding application on behalf of the community based Owen St Project Group to engage a facilitator for wider community consultation, and Anne Cunningham was appointed. There has been a meeting with WCC Officers to discuss a way forward, which Jane attended, and the Council are expected to call for expressions of interest from potential users about the end of July. Cr Laurie Foon thanked the community for their initiative in progressing this project.

Proposed District Plan 

Submissions on the PDP are open until Monday September 12th. This statutory consultation process is more complex than making the usual submissions to WCC . There are details on the WCC website. 

WCC passed an amendment to the PDP designed to protect sunlight on Carrara Park and other open space Parks. Cr Laurie Foon was one of the Councillors in favour of this, and will make further enquiries about the details of how this works.

Reclamation of Town Belt area 

Carol Comber outlined a plan to rejuvenate some tracks on town belt land in Mt Cook, known as Gum Gully – near Brooklyn Rd and  the boundary with Brooklyn. The ‘Gum Gully Working Group’ want to apply for funding from WCC to buy tools to enable more people to volunteer to work on this. 

The meeting supported Newtown Residents’ Association being an umbrella organisation for this application. 

Newtown Festival followup 

Rhona advised that the Newtown Festival team applied to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage for funds to compensate people who had been booked for the 2022 Festival and lost income because it was cancelled. This was successful and the Festival is now busy paying a range of people – from artists, to production crew and infrastructure providers. The meeting attendees congratulated both the Festival team and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage for this positive outcome.

Planning is underway for the 2023 Festival, in the hope that this will be able to go ahead without further interruptions.

Wellington Heritage Week, 24^th October- 6^th November

There was discussion about arranging a Newtown History tour for Heritage Week.

Newtown Culture and Community Centre progress 

It is hoped that the work will be finished in November but it might be delayed. NCCC has received a $250,000 Lotto grant towards the theatre equipment – we were one of the groups supporting what was a successful application.