Heather Wright/The Independent

Warwick Township is looking for grants to help pay for the first two phases of the Centennial Park Revitalization plan.

A permanent stage-bandshell, creative playgrounds, a bigger splash pad and reorienting the tennis/pickleball courts are part of the plans for Centennial Park. The township has been looking at options for the land behind the East Lambton Community Complex after the Bike Track closed.

The town’s Parks and Recreation Committee and staff worked with Park N Play – Park Planners on some of the high-level concept plan which expected to be a guide to revitalize the area over a number of years which recently went to council.

During budget deliberations Jan. 23, officials suggested the $550,000 wheeled skate park and the $440,000 accessible playground move ahead this year if grants are available for the work.

“It might be that the accessible playground is a part that comes forward,” said Treasurer Trevor Jarrett as he presented the capital budget to council. “Depending on the success of the grants, we will come back to council and recommit at that time, it might be that we don’t have money to complete either, if we don’t get success on the grants, and then we will look to put that into a reserve to build upon for next year so it can get delivered,” he said.

While council approved the concept plans, Mayor Todd Case isn’t sure this is the right time for the project.

“I struggle with this a lot to be very honest with you. These are big ticketed items. We’ve done an awful lot in and around the recreation side in the last few years,” he told council.

Township officials say there is no guarantee the grants would be successful, and even if they are, Case says the municipality is under no obligation to accept them.

“It’s wouldn’t be the first time that a municipality actually got approval for a grant for the municipality, and said ‘you know what? Thank you. We can’t quite afford it this year.’ So that’s always the option.
“Just because you get a grant doesn’t mean you have to take it.”

Case added it was good to see the costing “because if you don’t know about it, then you can’t even plan for the future.”

If the project is removed from the 2025 budget, it wouldn’t have an impact on the proposed five per cent tax increase since the revenue from the landfill pays for capital projects.

Township council, at the suggestion of Mayor Case, agreed to set aside the budget until February 3. That will give staff time to get some costing on some of the big ticket items, like construction of the Kingscourt bridge and the new fire truck.