Years of planning comes to fruition with opening of North Canterbury’s Community Vehicle Trust garage

The region’s oldest Community Vehicle Trust, located in North Canterbury, has officially opened its doors to its brand-new garage. The garage will house its six Rangiora-based vehicles, keeping them safe, secure, and frost-free over the colder months.  

The project has been six years in the making, when the trust first identified the need for a homebase and garage space for its service. 

Community Vehicle Trusts provide a transport option to smaller, often rural communities, which are outside of urban public transport networks. 

There are 17 trusts in Canterbury – these are supported by Environment Canterbury, central government and volunteers. 

The trust’s garage has been named after one of its pioneers, Don Fairbrother, who helped set-up the organisation in 1986, alongside Dorothy Mitchell, Mary Sparrow and Wayne Mitchell. All four of “the originals” as they dubbed themselves, were at the opening of the garage in early June. At the event, Don expressed his gratitude to the many volunteers, trustees, organisations and businesses who helped them get the build across the line.  

For the past almost 40 years, the trust’s vehicles have been parked at local businesses who had offered them the spaces. The garage is 369sqm in size, with nine large garage doors, complete with a reception/office area, small kitchen, storage space and bathroom. A separate garage has been reserved for equipment storage. 

The Rātā Foundation donated $100,000 towards the building, and the rest of the money was intentionally put aside from the trust’s vehicle upgrade fund over years to cover the cost.  

There's no mortgage on the building – the trust paid the entire $695,000 for it. It's meant the trust has delayed upgrading its vehicles for a while now, so that will be its next focus.

Over 50 volunteers drive the trust’s vehicles, and the trustees help coordinate, and fundraise.   

It runs four types of transport for locals; a shopper service, which takes locals from their homes to the supermarket every Tuesday and Thursday for $2 return, a hospital shuttle which takes patients and a chosen support person from Rangiora into the city for appointments for $45 return, a local service which takes people to appointments in surrounding areas which requires booking two days in advance and costs $2 return, as well as on-demand vehicle hires. 

The trust's contact details for making bookings or enquiring about volunteering are available on this website.