Community facilities grants distributed

North Shore City Council has just distributed $774,000 to support key community facilities around the city.

Recipients of grants from the council's community facilities fund include a mix of citywide and local sports and arts groups. Among them are the North Shore Events Centre, Netball North Harbour, the Devonport Museum, Shepherds Park Squash and North Harbour Table Tennis - which numbers among its members Olympians Li Chunli and Karen Li.

The chairperson of North Shore City's community services and parks committee, Margaret Miles, says the recipients represent a broad range of community-based activities around the city.

"It is an important recognition of the valuable role these organisations play in adding to the well-being of our city," she says.

Councillor Miles says her committee faced a difficult task this year deciding on recipients for the grants.

"This year we had 25 groups expressing interest in this fund, and the final applicant pool of 16 requested more than $2m in funds for projects totalling $11.7m.

"While our funding is only a modest portion of recipients' total project costs, it is a critical element in helping them gain the additional financial support they need for their projects from other sources, and bringing significant additional funds into the city," Margaret Miles says.

The grants allocated are:
* $85,000 to North Shore Events Centre towards its catering and cafeteria upgrade
* $85,000 to Netball North Harbour to upgrade courts at Onewa Domain
* $69,000 to North Harbour Hockey for turf replenishment
* $135,000 to North Harbour Stadium towards the oval redevelopment
* $150,000 to Harbour Sport
* $80,000 to North Harbour Table Tennis towards an extension of its Akoranga clubrooms
* $30,000 to Takapuna Lawn Tennis towards court resurfacing
* $25,000 to Shepherds Park Squash Club to extend the clubrooms
* $75,000 to the Real Theatre Company towards redeveloping the Devonport Cinema
* $40,000 to the Devonport Museum to improve access to exhibits.

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