Editorial: Council is all at sea over lifeguards

Yesterday in the newsroom, on two separate occasions I let out a loud piercing scream, leaping out of my chair in horror.

The first was when a scary looking earwig crawled out of my keyboard.

The second was on hearing that Tauranga City Council has refused $318,000 of funding to Tauranga's beach lifeguard service, but given $200,000 to the Tauranga Hockey Centre and budgeted $600,000 to a hydro slide at Baywave.

My creepy desk pest paled in comparison to Councillor Rich Curach, who made the absurd statement: "Enhancing the lifeguard service was a nice-to-have but it was not critical at this time."

And to David Stewart, who gave the reason for refusing the lifeguard request as a shortage of money: "We have no wriggle room to do much other than business as usual."

So improving a lifesaving service is not as essential as providing artificial grass for a select few of the community to play hockey?

Bear in mind we are a city surrounded by water. Our economy is boosted by our port, beaches, fishing and tourist industry. Tauranga is not known for its hockey.

Bay of Plenty Surf Life Saving has a four-year plan to make beaches safer by extending the weekday lifeguard service and setting up new life saving outposts.

The bulk of the $318,000 would have gone towards the one-off costs to create fully equipped lifeguard satellite stations at Tay St, Omanu East, Papamoa East and Shark Alley.

Hockey, meanwhile, will receive a $200,000 contribution towards the near-$1.4 million cost to replace artificial turfs at the Tauranga Hockey Centre in Blake Park, on top of $800,000 pledged by TECT and $600,000 the council has already given to originally develop the turf years ago.

Cr Curach crawled slightly back into my estimation as he was the only councillor to oppose the hockey funding.

In his view, the Hockey Association had not managed its financial situation wisely.

These are cash-strapped times. There are always going to be disappointments with clubs and organisations needing money. But I would prefer that my children are safe on the beaches.

This is ratepayers' money. It is the duty of local government to allocate it fairly.

There are 2000 hockey players in Tauranga. Safer beaches benefit not just our hundred thousand plus residents, but many more thousands of visitor numbers in the summer.

The fact that a sport like hockey is placed of higher value than an organisation which is dedicated to keeping our community safe is a shameful misuse of precious ratepayer funds.