MEETING and function rooms at the $15.5 million Gawler Civic Centre are lying virtually dormant, with Gawler Council to hold a public meeting to address the issue.

A report detailing the civic centre’s activities presented at council’s ordinary meeting on Tuesday, October 22, revealed some rooms were occupied for two of the 1288 hours they were available  between July and September.

Council, which as the building’s owner don’t pay to use its spaces, was the most frequent user, responsible for 51 per cent of function bookings and 85 per cent of meeting bookings.

With the exception of one meeting room permanently occupied by the Gawler Heritage Centre, no meeting rooms were booked more than 10 per cent of their available hours, with three booked less than one per cent of the time.

At their October meeting, elected members moved to set up a public workshop to find ways to increase activity at the centre in response to the report’s findings.

Councillor Cody Davies said community groups didn’t see value in holding meeting and events at the civic centre.

“I’m involved with a bunch of community groups, and when we meet its after working hours,” he said.

“When we do that we say ‘should we meet at Café Nova or at The PA (Hotel)’, the civic centre can’t even come in to it because it’s a $200 surcharge for security.

“We have a big facility there full of empty rooms and its not in use, which is a bit disappointing.

“Is it that they’re not marketing enough?

“Or is it that there isn’t that much need for meeting rooms during the day?”

The civic centre, which was completed $1.2 million over budget, also includes a Business Innovation Hub, which gained one paid member during the three month period and the Gawler Youth Space, which delivered 19 school holiday programs attended by 209 people.

Councillor Ian Tooley slammed the report presented at last week’s meeting, saying it contained “a lot of glossy spin”.

“The meeting rooms which Cody (Davies) was talking about, if it wasn’t for the fact council staff were meeting in them… the numbers would be even worse,” he said.

“Every one of those rooms has the screens and technology we invested millions in, and they’re underutilised.

“Groups are put off booking after hours because something happened in the design where we didn’t think about security issues.

“The Gawler Town Band won’t come here, apart from the acoustics being not good, because of the added expense of security.

“I believe the report is actually remiss in not being true to that, I think that report has put too much of a glossy spin on it.

“In summary, I believe the civic centre continues to underperform, and remains a cost risk for council going forward, and we really have to address that.”