New life is being breathed into the Wedderburn community, with the spotlight now shining on the community hall.

For years the old hall sat empty and the community association disbanded, but young couples and new families are now moving into the Maniototo town and people have started to clean up the old hall and the surrounding grounds.

The Maniototo Community Board discussed its future last week when the proprietor of the Wedderburn Tavern approached the council to buy it for staff accommodation.

But, because of the legal status of the hall, owned by the crown with council as manager of the property and land, it couldn’t be sold, and the cost to earthquake strengthen it was at least $393,000 if it continued to be used.

The Wedderburn Community Association is having its AGM in April 2024 to formalise new office bearers and plan its future direction, including hall management arrangements with council.

Central Otago District councillor Stu Duncan said there had been many applications to buy the hall over the years, but in recent times the community has become motivated to look after it again.

The last official use of the hall was in 2007, but a group of younger community members have been organising internal and external working bees in return for using it.

“Even this morning I went past and it was being used for aerobics or something,” he said.

 Council pays the operational costs of the hall and undertakes minor planned maintenance annually to ensure the building remained weather tight. 

Additionally other capital costs to the value of $32,500 have been proposed in the draft Long Term Plan 2024/2034. 

Stu said a lot had changed in the community, with young families moving back home to take over family farms, and other people moving to Wedderburn to build new houses - as well as renovate the old school house.

“There’s a lot of extra people here at the moment. The community is keen on retaining the hall, he said.

The hall property ownership dates back to 1926 when it was purchased by the Wedderburn Hall Association from the Crown. It was passed back to the Crown in 1960 and became part of the Wedderburn Domain and was managed by the Wedderburn Hall committee. 

When the domain board ceased to exist, the reserve passed to council. An arrangement existed that the hall committee took care of the ground maintenance around the hall property and arranged for grazing of the reserve to keep vegetation in check.