The Otaki-based clean technology centre which developed a $200,000 electric rubbish truck for the Kapiti Coast district council, has now lost its financial backing from Wellington’s economic development agency.
According to The Dominion Post, Grow Wellington is withdrawing its backing for Otaki’s Clean Technology Centre, saying it has failed to achieve results for ratepayers.
Grow Wellington owns the building, off Riverbank Rd which the centre occupies. It has now given three months’ notice to the six current occupants, and plans to let the space to industrial tenants instead.
Grow Wellington chief executive Gerard Quinn says it had tried for four years to make its support for the Clean Technology Centre work. “We have to be really careful with public money. It has not worked out.”
“We have been confident working with the district council, but we are not getting the results, the best bang for bucks,” says Quinn.
“One of the aims was to attract out-of- the-region businesses. We have not been successful in that.”
Quinn told the The Dominion Post that Grow Wellington was not withdrawing support for Kapiti, or for clean technology businesses overall.
Securing rent from industrial tenants meant it could put that funding into supporting clean technology businesses.
