maintaining their facilities<\/a>.<\/p>\nGiven that investment, and the limited ability of clubs to relocate, Warner said the land use policy should guarantee them longer-term security of tenure.<\/p>\n
He said those investments underpinned the frontline volunteer rescue services that played a vital role in keeping beachgoers safe.<\/p>\n
During the last season, the three clubs along the Mount Maunganui and P\u0101p\u0101moa coastline saved 97 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s 97 people who are home with their families and wh\u0101nau today that would not have been the case had we not been there,\u201d Warner said.<\/p>\n
In response to Warner\u2019s submission, Mayor Mah\u00e9 Drysdale said he understood where the surf club was coming from regarding security of tenure.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the flip side, I think it would be a very politically unpopular decision to move a surf club without having another home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drysdale asked Warner whether there had ever been a case in New Zealand where a council had left a surf lifesaving club without a base.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The Tauranga City Council City Futures Committee heard public submissions on the Use of Council Land Policy on Wednesday. Photo \/ Kaitlyn Morrell<\/p>\n
Warner said it was not something he was across and agreed with Mayor Drysdale it would be \u201csignificantly unpopular\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean that [the] council has to make tough decisions at different times that it sees in its best interest,\u201d Warner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat it sees as its best interest is maybe not what surf lifesaving and the community sees as best.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Treated and managed differently\u2019 <\/p>\n
The council also proposed a policy requiring the impact on existing ratepaying businesses to be considered when new commercial activities on council-owned land are assessed.<\/p>\n
Warner said surf clubs should also be exempt from this clause because they are volunteer organisations working to raise funds to save lives.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The] council\u2019s proposing surf lifesaving clubs be constrained by clauses which, if removed, would likely enhance and enable long-term community safety and financial sustainability for organisations which are critical to community wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the club delivered beach education and surf safety at its facilities, which were also Civil Defence operation hubs and education and welfare centres.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think surf lifesaving clubs need to be ring-fenced, pulled out of the sporting pool and popped somewhere else or ring-fenced within it and treated and managed differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the club supported the council\u2019s developing \u201chealthy lifestyles by the beach\u201d event strategy, but restrictions on commercial activities limited its ability to generate revenue needed to fund its lifesaving work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not bringing commercial money in to make a profit. We\u2019re not bringing dollars in to feed our own nests. We\u2019re bringing money in to buy rescue equipment to save people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee will deliberate on the policy at its August 18 meeting.<\/p>\n
Kaitlyn Morrell<\/a> is a journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has lived in the region for several years and studied journalism at Massey University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council classifies the lifeguard service as a recreational sporting organisation, making it subject to the same reserve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8831,115,5205,9359,2082,78,19720,129042,17707,13233,111,139,69,7254,2552,213],"class_list":["post-507305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-an","tag-calls","tag-council","tag-exemption","tag-for","tag-in","tag-land","tag-lifeguard","tag-maunganui","tag-mount","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-policy","tag-service","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}