The Government has announced that Christchurch is
to have both of the much delayed Metro Sports Facility and the covered
rugby/events stadium.
Keep Our Assets Canterbury (KOA) welcomes the Metro
Sports Facility, although we note that it is being downgraded.
This facility will actually be of use to a number
of different sporting codes and to the wider Canterbury public.
But we repeat our longstanding opposition to
the proposed stadium, which is the whitest and most elephantine of white
elephants, to which the previous Government saddled the previous City Council
under the name of "anchor projects".
To add insult to injury, the City Council is
committed to paying $253 million of ratepayers' money towards it.
The justification for this is that it will
guarantee Christchurch getting into the big boys' club of rugby venues.
No, it won't.
A myth is being spread that, because we didn't have
a suitable stadium, Christchurch missed out on getting an All Blacks' test
during the 2017 Lions tour.
A fact check is necessary.
When the NZ Rugby Union announced the itinerary for
that tour (out of which it made a hefty profit), it announced that - for
the first time in more than a century - the Lions wouldn't play the All Blacks
anywhere in the South Island.
The Rugby Union ruled out Christchurch not only
because it didn't have a suitable stadium - but the Rugby Union considered the
city itself not up to scratch in terms of facilities to handle the number of
touring fans, etc.
OK, so did the Lions play the All Blacks in
Dunedin, which boasts the country's newest stadium, and only covered one?
No, they didn't.
Because the Rugby Union deemed that the covered
stadium in Dunedin to be neither here not there, it decided that the city of
Dunedin per se was not up to handling an event of such magnitude.
The Lions played their three tests against the All
Blacks in Auckland and Wellington.
The England rugby teams plays all its home games at
Twickenham. How long before the NZ Rugby Union decides that every All Blacks'
home test will be played at Eden Park.
The message from the Rugby Union is very clear -
"sorry, South Island. it doesn't matter how many covered stadiums you
build, you suffer from a terminal case of 'not Auckland syndrome'".
The Christchurch City Council has got more pressing
priorities on which to spend a quarter of a billion dollars - such as repairing
its public housing units damaged in the quakes, replacing those destroyed in
the quakes, and upgrading its whole stock of public housing in terms of
healthiness, warmth and comfort.
Or, use it to pay for the rapidly escalating cost
of fixing Christchurch's water network.
I speak as a rugby fan who regularly attends games
at the perfectly adequate Addington stadium.
In fact, I was there on the wettest and stormiest
night of winter 2017, on a day where the City Council declared a state of
emergency due to flooding.
So I have plenty of first-hand experience of that
stadium, including in lousy weather.
Indeed commentators remarked about that game
(Crusaders versus Highlanders) that the visiting team was at
a disadvantage because it had forgotten how to play games that aren't
under the shelter of a roof.
But then again, on Saturday night I watched on TV a
game played at Eden Park, the country's premier rugby stadium.
It was played in torrential rain.
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| City Council should do what you always do with an anchor.
Chuck it overboard
|
But there was absolutely zero clamour for Auckland
ratepayers to fork out for a roof over that.
The NZ Rugby Union has got plenty of money,
bolstered by its healthy profit from the 2017 Lions' tour.
But it hasn't offered to contribute one cent to a
stadium from which it stands to be the major beneficiary.
Time for the Rugby Union to put up or shut up.
As far as this particular anchor project is
concerned, the City Council should do what you always do with an anchor.
Chuck it overboard.
Murray Horton
Convenor
