Regional council funds $500k for community groups

Bay of Plenty Regional Council chairman Doug Leeder

Bay of Plenty Regional Council is allocating $552,000 per year to help community groups look after the environment.

Of the 838 submission points to the council's Long Term Plan heard last month, 285 were focused on community engagement and volunteer support.

The council will provide a total of $212,000 a year for funding requests, $310,000 a year to its Environmental Enhancement Fund applications and $30,000 a year for corporate sponsorship requests throughout the year.

Chairman Doug Leeder said some of the requests for funding were closely aligned to the council's work.

Several eligible requests were not recommended for funding, because the council was already providing similar services or because the application could go through another funding source.

"The council received considerable feedback during the Long Term Plan consultation process supporting our Environmental Enhancement Fund and the good work it does in supporting community initiatives and mobilising volunteers," Mr Leeder said.

"The council supports volunteers in many ways across a number of activities. Enviroschools provides support to 85 schools and we provide online teacher resources. We support 58 Land Care, 34 Coast Care and 11 Estuary Care groups. We also support communities with biodiversity protection, our Maritime section supports volunteer Coastguards and Pollution Busters provides about 1,000 households with environmental information.

"Our Maori Policy team supports iwi and hapu resource management plans, we co-ordinate the Rotorua Youth Environment Forum, support the western Bay's Instep programme and run an annual youth conference," Mr Leeder said.