The West Otago Vintage Club has a vast collection of vintage farm machinery, including rare tractors in working condition.
Currently their machinery collection is housed across four different sites. A project is being led by the club’s volunteers, to purchase a section and build a new purpose-built storage facility alongside their current museum at Tapanui.
The West Otago Vintage Club believes this will support West Otago as a tourism destination and demonstrate how the important history of agriculture and forestry development has supported the evolution of the area.
As part of their funding options, a grant of $200k has been sought to contribute to the overall estimated project cost of $870k, including a portion of which has already been fundraised, and the remaining costs are being sought elsewhere.
What are our options?
This option prevents the need to use limited Council reserves or rate funding.
Should the project not go ahead due to finance constraints, the benefits discussed above would not be realised.
There is an improved level of service, through an extension to existing infrastructure to make new heritage resources and events more accessible in the Clutha District.
It supports the community to retain important community heritage, and links to the supporting community-led projects in the Our Place West Otago Community Plan.
The cost to the community would be paid back via a 25 year loan through the UAGC, as this is where other museum grants are generally funded. This is approximately $16,700 per annum or an increase of $1.52 incl. GST per annum for each UAGC over the term of the loan.
Like option 2, this supports retaining and making community heritage more accessible.
The available investment surplus balance will be known before decisions are made.
This option would not have a direct rates impact.
