The station, on the main street, has been punted back and forth between authorities, all the while slowly deteriorating.
KiwiRail, which owns the property, tried to sell it to the Mataura Community Board for $1, a deal which was nixed by the Gore District Council.
Gore District councillor Neville Phillips said he was getting tired of watching as a centrepiece of the town was damaged even further.
Cr Phillips said it was hard to get a straight answer about the station, especially from those who did not have to see it every day.
"It doesn’t seem to matter how many emails you send to KiwiRail. They just don’t seem to be interested, don’t seem to care.
"At the end of the day, they don’t live in the community and have to see a derelict building going to waste," he said.
Between this and other issues Mataura was facing when dealing with central government, Cr Phillips said he wondered where his tax money was going.
"Transit New Zealand [NZTA] and KiwiRail can’t get their act together to do one project, to save money in the long term," he said.
The classification of the station as a Heritage 2 site has led to Kiwirail not doing anything for the building.
Cr Phillips suggested the organisation wanted the station to be moved, and the land be repurposed for something else, whereas the Mataura community had been trying to get the ball rolling.
"The community has done its due diligence to update the building, to do everything. We’ve been hamstrung by KiwiRail all along.
"They do the outside up a little bit here and there, when they can, and that’s it. Emails after emails, and you’re continually fobbed off," he said.
Complaints about the broken glass led to the windows being boarded up, and the graffiti had been continually ignored, Cr Phillips said.
The council was also powerless to intervene, as the bylaws could only apply to biohazardous properties, he said.
Cr Phillips said a lack of visibility had led to an out of sight, out of mind attitude when it came to the state of stations in the South Island, and said it was time for the government to front up.
"Because there’s no passengers on the rail, they don’t see the derelict stations on the trail. How many times would [Rail Minister] Winston Peters go past the railway station in Mataura?
"I invite the minister to come down, have a drive past, and see what he thinks."
KiwiRail executive general manager property Anna Allen said, in an email, they were working with engineers, heritage consultants, and the council on plans for the remediation.
These plans included re-roofing, but work was dependent on funding.
Mr Peters was contacted for comment, but did not respond by the time of publication.
