Council pulls plug on $5m urban play spend up

“We are not saying don’t have play. We’ve got 54 playgrounds and about 70 play areas in the city, so we are still going to invest in them."

The Invercargill City Council has halted plans for a $5m spend up earmarked for urban play in the city.

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The Invercargill City Council has ditched plans for a $5 million spend up on urban play in the city, with a group of councillors saying the city simply cannot afford it at the moment.

Although other councillors are concerned by the move, with one councillor suggesting it would be hard to justify the message that Invercargill is a great place to raise a family, with the council not prepared to invest in play options.

The council had allocated $4.956m towards Urban Play in its 2024-2034 Long-term Plan, with initial plans to create a playground in the city centre.

As part of the draft annual plan process, councillors then agreed for that $4.9m to be spent on urban play opportunities throughout the whole city, including the city centre, North Invercargill, South Invercargill, and Bluff.

But on Tuesday, at a council meeting, the majority of councillors agreed to halt the additional spending altogether.

Cr Alex Crackett was one of those who pushed for the council to box on with the $5m spend.

“If we halt this now and don’t allow it to continue - even though you would be effectively pulling something out that has already been counted for - then how do we turn around and justify to ourselves that Invercargill is a fantastic place to raise a family, and that we are consistently investing in them,” Crackett said.

Crackett said the council was pulling the rug out from under itself and Invercargill’s families, for what reason?

The council had planned to start capital work on urban play in the 2025-2026 financial year, although it would not have had an impact on rates for that period.

That rates impact would have come the following year. The urban play spending was going to be funded through council borrowing.

Cr Steve Broad also spoke in favour of continuing with the proposed spend on urban play.

“I think we are sending a clear message in supporting this [urban play spending] that we are still a vibrant, inclusive, and attractive city - a city with heart, in our vision.

“I’m nervous about taking the foot off the gas in our message to the community.”

Although many councillors spoke of the need to put it on hold for financial reasons.

“It’s not about not wanting to provide a sense of belonging or safe play for our children,” Cr Ria Bond said.

“For me, it is about being wise with what we’ve got and what we need to focus on in this next term. At the moment, urban play is not in that house with me.

“We’ve got a pretty strong deck to deal with in the next term, I think we would be wise to put this on hold.”

Cr Grant Dermody was also wary about proceeding with the $5m spend.

“We are not saying don’t have play. We’ve got 54 playgrounds and about 70 play areas in the city, so we are still going to invest in them.

“But this ($5m) is new capital, this is saying we are going to build new and that requires maintenance.

“We are going to stretch our maintenance budget further for our play areas because we spent another $4.5m or $5m on new play equipment, so why would we do that?

“We wouldn’t we just keep investing in what we’ve got.”

The council eventually voted in favour of halting that planned $5m urban play spend.