Save the date! Sunday 10 December, 11am-1pm Anderson Park, Morrinsville Recreation Ground.

We are holding a community event to celebrate the opening of the new Morrinsville Recreation Ground perimeter path and pop up pump track coming soon to Anderson Park.

We are looking for food vendors, stall holders and entertainment! Would you like to take part? Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 30 November. 

Background
Last year we asked the community to 'reimagine' Morrinsville Rec and let us know how you see Morrinsville Recreation Ground looking, feeling and being used now and in the future. A big thank you to everyone who attended one of our key stakeholder workshops, public pop-in sessions or submitted your thoughts and ideas online - we had a great response and were able to see what you already like about The Rec and how it could be even better. We used your ideas and feedback to create a master plan to provide the overall vision for how Council, sport and community groups could develop the Rec over the next 10-30 years as manpower and budget allows. One of the more popular ideas was to construct a path along the perimeter of the Rec to make it more accessible to local neighbourhoods and the town centre, bringing more people to the Rec for exercise and recreation. 

Ready, set, action! 
Thanks to Long Term Plan and Waka Kotahi Transport Choices funding, we can complete a perimeter path on the reserve that runs alongside the railway track from Lorne Street to Avenue Road South, sooner than hoped. We'll start working on the path from Monday 7 August and aim to have it ready to use by December 2023.

More about the perimeter path
The 950m long, 3m wide concrete path will be suitable for people to walk, bike or scoot to the Rec and will be accessible for mobility scooters, wheelchairs and prams. The path will have at least two access points to the Rec grounds; at Anderson Park playground and the fields by the cricket nets (see green dots on map). The new path joins up to the existing paths and river walk to create a loop. 

During construction
From Monday 7 August we'll be closing access to the reserve along the railway track from Lorne Street and Chapman Crescent. This work will not impact the sports fields or dog exercise area, please continue to use as per usual.

River walk improvements
Over the next few months we will also be widening sections of the existing river walk along Avenue Road South and resealing the upper path along the river. We will let you know on our website and via Antenno when we are doing this work.   

Funding
As part of our Transport Choices funding agreement, this funding can only be used on the new path and improving parts of the existing river walk path.  We are unable to use the funds for any other projects at the Rec. We look forward to working with the community to progress other projects in the Morrinsville Rec masterplan over time, as resources and funds become available.

Thinking about the future
The long term vision we've adopted for the Rec has a range of possible ways we could use the fields and other spaces. It shows we could potentially use the land along the railway track for an off-leash dog area and Frisbee golf or similar in the future. Although we don't have funding to progress any other projects at the Rec at the moment, the path design is mindful to not interfere with these spaces, only improve access to them. Watch this space!

In our current Long Term Plan (LTP) we have $250,000 available in 2022/23

Waka Kotahi Transport Choices funding is $384,397 for this project

Waka Kotahi Transport Choices programme - Transport Choices is part of the Government’s Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF) that supports councils to begin immediate work to develop safer, greener and healthier travel options. You can learn more about Transport Choices and see the full suite of  projects in our district  here.

The shortcut through the Lorne Street end of the Rec and Chapman Crescent will not be accessible during construction, with heavy machinery, traffic management and contractors in the area. 

Homes near construction with have 24/7 access to their properties during and after construction.

Morrinsville Rec master plan - long term vision document  We worked with iwi, regular users and the community in 2021/22 to form a master plan document providing a long term vision for the Rec to use as a guiding document for the next 10-30 years.

Parks and Open Spaces Strategy 2021-51 - We adopted our Open Spaces Strategy in 2021 after consultation with our communities. The Parks and Open Spaces Strategy sets a long-term vision for our parks and open spaces network. It guides decision-making about the provision, development and management of parks and open spaces, to ensure we have the right parks and open spaces, in the right locations, managed in the right way, to meet the needs of our communities. 

Strategic Direction Summary  Council has set its strategic direction to inform our priorities and work programme moving forward. The strategic direction aligns with the four community wellbeings – social, environmental, cultural and economic which are core pillars of local government’s mandate.