Central Lakes Trust (CLT) has granted $1.75 million to the further development to local cycle trails linking the great rides of New Zealand with the latest round of funding, marking year four of a five year grant commitment.

Central Otago Queenstown Trail Network Trust (COQTNT) chair Stephen Jeffery says, “the completed Lake Dunstan Trail is stage one of five to establish an additional 170 kilometres of trail linking Queenstown and Wanaka to existing New Zealand Cycle Trails”.

The remaining four stages are concurrently being worked on, some more advanced than others.

“CLT’s overall commitment of $11.15m is five times greater than any previous grant and still remains the largest grant to date,” says CLT chief executive, Susan Finlay.

She says she couldn’t be prouder of the Trust’s commitment to the development of the cycle trail network. 

“The amount of people utilising the Lake Dunstan Trail is evidence of what an asset it is for the community, and shows the potential of what the entire network will become.”

A total of $4.73 million of the $9.60 million 2021/2022 grants budget was approved at the first board meeting of the 2021/2022 financial year.

“$3.57 million was to organisations we have long standing relationships with, including the COQTNT grant of $1.75 million.  

“These grants were approved on a multi-year basis,” she says.

The Trust processes these multi-year grants at the start of each financial year, accounting for the large portion of the grants budget allocated.

CLT Grants Manager Mat Begg says multi-year granting is a high trust model that the Trust only considers with long serving grantees, it reduces the administrative burden of applying year-on-year.

He says, “multi-year grants make sense for groups we have a long-standing relationship with. Where there is a strong relationship and good understanding of what the group is delivering, why make the application process more onerous than it needs to be.”

Central Lakes Arts Support Scheme (CLASS) is another example of a CLT initiative to be granted on a multi-year basis.

The scheme was created by the Trust in 2008 to promote arts at a local ‘grass roots’ level. 

It is administered by the four local community arts councils, Alexandra Community Arts Council, Arts Central, Creative Queenstown, and Upper Clutha Community Arts. 

Local groups can apply to the councils for funding to support art activities in their region. Grants are available to the tune of $2,000 per applicant or project each year.

Creative Queenstown’s Jan Maxwell says, “having the security of knowing this funding is available for the next three years will provide our community with many opportunities to experience and be creative through projects funded through CLASS. Our thanks to the trustees for their ongoing support of the arts in the Wakatipu.”

Jan says examples of groups to receive support over the past year include Rockformation, Listen Up Wakatipu, and Queenstown Readers and Writers Festival.

Salvation Army also received confirmation of the second year of their multi-year grant.

Salvation Army Lt Andrew Wilson says, “Central Lakes Trust is the primary funder of our front-line services. 

“The grant we receive from CLT has helped us keep pace with the demand for social support services in our community. 

“Having a multi-year grant both gives us long term stability and ensures we spend more time focusing on providing quality care to those who access our services, rather than continually working on funding applications.”

Happiness House in Queenstown was another to receive confirmation of second year funding as part of a multi-year grant.

They provide crisis intervention, resolution and general social support for families and individuals in the Wakatipu area, and have received funding for operational costs since 2001.

Happiness House Manager, Robyn Francis says, “multi-year funding gives us a higher level of confidence in our planning and funding model. It also makes the funding process more efficient with less time taken up in administration. 

“We are very grateful that we are able to access multi-year funding.”

Central Lakes Family Services (CLFS) also receive multi-year funding.

General Manager Tina Mongston says, “we are forever grateful for the ongoing support CLT continues to provide for CLFS over many years. 

“Multi-year funding grants provide a level of on-going security and allows for planning of service provision without having to worry about a lack of funds.  

“It also reduces administration tasks to make the process much more efficient and less time consuming.”

Others to receive funding include St John with over $200,000 towards three new ambulances one each to be based in Cromwell, Alexandra and Queenstown.

A new group to receive funding is the Rock Quest Charitable Trust, who receive support to put on the Central Otago Smokefreerockquest and Smokefree Tangata event to be held at the Lake Wanaka Centre on the 19 June 2021.

Since the Trust commenced 21 years ago, it has returned over $123 million back into the community.  This year’s grants budget is the largest in the Trust’s history at

$9.60 million.

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