Sending the kids off to play mini-golf by Cromwell’s iconic Big Fruit may become a thing of the past unless the long-running activity can secure its future at the site.

Shona Rae is in her twentieth year of running Cromwell Mini-Golf and is well known to families from all over Otago and Southland, who return year after year.

“I’ve seen their kids grow up and then they get too big for mini-golf and go off. There’s families that drive up from Alexandra to come and play golf then they’ll visit the playground next door, go to Subway and sometimes go and look at the pets at Nichols{Garden Centre}. It’s an affordable outing.”

Shona’s twenty year lease expired nearly four months ago but she says she has been trying to renegotiate a new lease with Central Otago District Council for over a year. The council have stated, Shona says, that they must allow for a possible new park to be built on the site, despite no firm plans or timeframes for such a development existing.

The shortened term of a new lease being offered - reduced from 20 years to two years, with a right of renewal for another two - is far from ideal, she says, especially with the second two-year term able to be cancelled by council giving six months’ notice at any time.

The arrangement offered no future security for the business making it unviable for anyone else to take on and effectively worthless as an asset, Shona claims.

In August last year the Cromwell Community Board offered the new lease on a recommendationfrom council property staff. Future plans for the site, identified in the spatial plan part of the ‘Eye to The Future’ Masterplan, marked the area as a ‘Gateway Precinct’ with a possible World of Difference gateway park located on the mini-golf site, Shona says.

While developments were understood to be some way off, Shona said the council were now reluctant to offer her a longer lease in case it compromised their ability to go ahead with the possible park development.

Staff had outlined to the Board that the disadvantages of offering her the shorter lease included the likelihood that the security of tenancy she wanted would not eventuate and that the site may be vacated.

Families sometimes stop for lunch across the road at Subway then came back and finish their round at Cromwell Mini-Golf, owner Shona Rae says.

“It’s one of the few affordable things for families to do here,” Shona says, “it’s only $7 for a child and $10 for an adult and it’s a tourism asset for Cromwell. Too valuable an asset to just throw out.”

In the spring school holidays 165 locals, 91 visitors from surrounding areas and 135 from the wider region played mini-golf. The business had been popular for work functions, school holiday programmes and school camp groups for many years.

“We draw customers off the highway and this benefits other businesses too.”

With over 10 years as a volunteer on the Cromwell lamp; Districts Promotion Group Shona says she has a strong interest in the industry and had attended recent council-run workshops on future Tourism planning. Tourism staff had attempted to help but had advised that lease arrangements were outside of their areas of responsibility.

A drawing from the Cromwell Masterplan spatial plan document showing a possible new park at the site of a current Mini-golf business.

A Central Otago District Council spokesperson yesterday confirmed the lease offered had to be in line with future plans for the area.

“The shorter-term renewal and 6 month cancellation clause was applied to align with the proposals identified in the Cromwell Spatial Plan. The approach is consistent with other leases which allows lessee to continue trading until plans for the land were finalised.  For the mini golf lease it meant no rent review because of the limited security of the tenure and did not preclude a further renewal after 2025.

"The Spatial Plan identifies the land as a Gateway Precinct, and a 'World of Difference gateway park’ adjacent to the Big Fruit sculpture as a welcoming space and destination, with the landscaping to reflect the Central Otago/Cromwell basin.”