Rangiora may not fund Canterbury promotion

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 2

Rangiora may not fund Canterbury promotion

The Rangiora Borough Council will not make a grant to the Canterbury Promotion Council for the coming financial year if it takes the recommendation of its council’s finance and general committee.

The Promotion Council seeks 20c a head of population from certain local bodies in the Canterbury region. Last year, participating local bodies contributed 10c a head for an effective halfyear of activities. However, the Oxford County Council has agreed to support the Promotion Council for another year. Oxford councillors felt that the Promotion Council had not had time to prove itself and deserved support for at least a further year. Last year, the Oxford council decided to support th' Promotion Council for one year and to review its work at the end of that year. The Rangiora finance committee questioned the degree of benefit of the Promotion Council both to the Canterbury area as a whole and Rangiora Borough in particular.

Rangiora councillors were agreed that the further the local bodies were from Christchurch, the Jess benefit was received from the Promotion Council. Councillors felt that this point should be acknowledged by the Promotion Council’s charging less per head for the local bodies further from Christchurch.

The suggested levy of 20c a head would cost the Rae ngiora Borough $1230, which the Mayor of Rangiora (Mr J. A. McKenzie) said "seems to be a bit excessive.” “I don’t know if there is any point in keeping this alive,” he said. Cr W. H. F. Conway said the council should keep an open mind. If representatives of the Promotion Council attended a council meeting councillors would get the answers to questions that had been asked at the committee meeting.

Several councillors questioned what benefits the borough got from the Promotion Council’s activities this year. They also felt several activities, which the Promotion Council claimed to have helped promote, would have been held in Christchurch in any case.

As well as belonging to Rangiora, the borough residents were also a part of the greater Canterbury region, said Cr Conway. A motion was lost to have a representative of the Promotion Council attend the next Rangiora council meeting. A move to pay only 10c a head was lost also.

The committee adopted a motion by Cr C. G. Hayward that the Promotion Council be informed that the borough could not make a grant this coming year. ' A councillor of the Oxford County Council (Cr W. Small) said that by supporting the Promotion Council for a further year Oxford was not committed to support it in future years. He said that’ the Promotion Council had had too little time to prove its worth.-

The chairman of the Oxford council (Mr B. G. Erickson) said the Promotion Council received about 750 inquiries about attractions in Canterbury. It also planned to help promote scenic attractions in Oxford County, The Oxford County Clerk (Mr L. L- Kennedy) said the Promotion Council helped promote the Oxford and Canterbury area to a much more local extent than other bodies.

The Oxford council agreed to grant the body $342, based oh 20c per head of population, which was 1710 at April 1, 1979. Mr Kennedy said that last year it had asked for 16c per head of population, but this was reduced because the Promotion Council only had an executive officer for six months, The increase was therefore really only 4c this year, he said.