Just weeks after announcing new stables and holding yards for the showground, the Member for Port Macquarie Leslie Williams has confirmed funding for four other community facilities.

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The Camden Haven Rural Fire Service has been awarded $30,000 to upgrade its station at Kew; the Kendall Men’s Shed will receive $28,206 to fix its roof; the Camden Haven Chamber of Commerce has secured $20,228 to upgrade the iKew Centre; and the Kendall Tennis Club has been granted $9800 to install a solar battery system.

The money for these projects, plus the $39,729 for the Camden Haven Show Society’s new holding yards, will come from the government’s Community Building Partnership Program (CBP).

“I congratulate all the organisations that were successful in their application and look forward to seeing how these projects make a real difference for community groups in the area,” Mrs Williams said.

Long-time Show Society President Ron Porter, told News Of The Area that the money for the holding yards, on top of the recent $114,000 from the Crown Reserve Improvement Fund to replace the stables, “is just unbelievable.”

“We’ve been trying for ten years at least and have had nothing of this size before,” he said.

“As soon as I found out [we’d received funding], I got voluntary workers to start tearing the old ones down.”

Now all that is left of the “unsafe” original structures are piles of timber, with work to begin soon on their steel replacements.

Sixteen projects across the Port Macquarie electorate have shared a total of $300,000 in this round of the CMP.

The others are:

— $37,304 for St Thomas’ Anglican Church Port Macquarie ($22,359 to install ducted air conditioning and $14,945 to upgrade the disabled toilets).

— $25,934 to Lord Howe Island Marine Rescue for an infrared camera.

— $23,100 for the Port Macquarie Women’s Shed for a dust extraction system.

— $22,000 to the Coopernook P&C for a playground shade structure.

— $13,707 for the Port Macquarie Scouts to upgrade the scout hall.

— $8910 for the Mid North Coast Maritime Museum for the historic pilot boat shed.

— $8183 for Port Macquarie Community Preschool to replace window and door frames.

— $6000 to Port Macquarie Community Garden to buy a storage shed.

— $5990 for Port Macquarie Little Athletics for a fully monitored defibrillator.

— $5350 to the Port Macquarie Oxley Bridge Club for a card dealing machine.

By Sue STEPHENSON