Roxburgh’s Entertainment Centre Committee has pulled together its first outdoor movie for next Saturday, but locals are still demanding answers about their rebuild.

The Central Otago District Council held a workshop on Thursday to share with the Teviot Valley Community Board the next steps with the project.

But locals were angry they hadn’t been told about the meeting, and one fronted up in the public forum to say “it was absolutely appalling” that it was poorly advertised.

A month ago, board chair Norman Dalley told council in person that the community wanted assurances that their entertainment centre would be rebuilt in some shape or form.

The heritage building was burnt down on Waitangi Day and a decision was made to demolish the facade as well, for safety reasons and because of the cost.   

Norman told the council the community was expecting some correspondence about what next, and believed that hadn’t been forthcoming.

The local woman named Jan, told the board that she was disappointed with council about the transparency, “it’s time that the process is spelled out,” she said.

Questioning why a public meeting wasn’t held in the evening when people could actually turn up after work, she said the council needed to put in every effort to let the community know what was happening.

“I feel like swearing…nobody knew it was on…I think the community will be up in arms over this.”

Norman said while there been general concerns around the lack of communication, at least he had raised it at council level.

The workshop was online for anybody in the community to watch, but was simply about ‘paving the path’ for the future.

“We’re not looking for community input,” he said.

There had been and still was a lot of unanswered questions,” he said, referring to engineers reports and insurance assessments, which all took time.

Meanwhile, the community is invited to the Roxburgh Rugby Grounds on Saturday 29th at 6:30pm to watch New Zealand film ‘Tina.’

On a Facebook post, the committee posted to come early to get a good spot and bring blankets, bean bags and deck chairs, before it started at 8pm (has to be dark of course).

There would be a marquee up for shelter, and the Roxburgh Lions food van would be available, along with icecream.

Entry is by koha and would go towards the new rebuild.

More on plans for the new rebuild in tomorrow's news.