Auckland speedway stadium to be funded by millions from city's parks

Wednesday, 7 November 2018

A controversial new Auckland speedway stadium may be funded from the city's parks budget – outraging some councillors ahead of a vote on whether to proceed with the plans.

One fears local suburban parks 'in dire straits' will miss out on vital upgrades, while another says the plan, yet to be tabled to councillors, illustrates that a 'backroom boys' club deal' has been struck.

An email from Auckland Mayor Phil Goff's office said the council's preference for funding the stadium at Colin Dale Park would be to take any shortfall, expected to be between $6.8m and $9.3m, from the parks budget.

Council is due to green light the new stadium – to be leased for 30 years to private promoters Springs Promotions – at a meeting on November 20, ending 90 years of speedway at the historic Western Springs.

**READ MORE:

* Speedway deal: has council cut the best deal?

* 'Betrayed': the secret speedway deal**

Meanwhile, Regional Facilities Auckland (RFA), the council's venues arm, has revealed it has signed a Heads of Agreement with New Zealand Cricket to play cricket at Western Springs from 2021.

Internal council briefing documents said they wanted the stadium ready for the 2021 Women's Cricket World Cup.

That may further enrage a group of councillors who said they had been kept in the dark over the speedway and cricket moves.

Councillor John Watson, a vocal critic of the move, said he was worried about money being lost from suburban parks.

'The question I'm asking is about the funding of a private entity . . . at the expense of all manner of suburban grounds around Auckland begging for proper facilities,' he said. 

'There's a number of grassroots local parks in dire straits . . . it's a real issue.'

Fellow councillor Wayne Walker said the money would be likely taken from an already-tight parks capital expenditure budget.

He said the mayor and key councillors must have been 'aware of a cost blowout that is significant, a substantial sum of money', which wasn't brought before the council's Long Term Plan, which sets long-term budgets.

Walker said the council was digging a 'big hole' and he wanted the plans revisited.

'I will certainly be trying for that and I don't doubt a number of councillors will take that position.'

Councillor Christine Fletcher said the parks budget was already 'shameful' and 'a joke', citing just $450,000 allocated to the city's regional parks for the next decade.

She was unaware of the proposal to fund the Colin Dale move from the parks budget.

'I would have jumped on it like a tonne of bricks. If somebody had said to me 'oh look we're going to need to $10 or $15m out of the parks budget to do this', I would have remembered.'

The May 18 email from the Mayor's Office – obtained under an Official Information Act request – was sent to a group of councillors and senior officials and said progress on a speedway deal had been 'excellent'.

'In terms of the LTP, I'd like to confirm that our preference that the currently budgeted $5m in RFA remains and that any additional amount that may be needed is deal with through a budget update once the deal is concluded (likely to the parks budget),' it said.

The $5m referred to was money tagged to speedway some three years ago in the RFA budget. The council's outline deal with Springs Promotions was to provide an initial $10m plus GST, plus $300,000 for a project manager, and possibly another $2.5m grant.

That did not include other costs the council was committed to covering, such as floodlights, seats, consents and infrastructure improvements. 

The email said 'a public budget decision' should be avoided, and it would 'provide an unnecessary distraction during the LTP decision-making'.  

It was signed Nicola, and came from the Mayors' Office, but the official's full name, job title and email address were redacted. However, the mayor's manager of finance and policy is named Nicola Oberste-Berghaus.

In a statement, the Mayor's Office would say only that no decision had been made on funding the development and that it would be considered by the council's Finance and Performance Committee meeting on November 20.

But committee chair Ross Clow acknowledged the shortfall and the likelihood of the money coming from parks, as the project was on council parks land.

Clow said the parks budget could either be increased in the annual plan, with the extra money going to speedway, or extra money squeezed out of local parks through 're-prioritisation'.

But Clow said that decision would come only after a contract was signed with Springs Promotions.

As Stuff has earlier reported, speedway promoters told fans to continue campaigning to stay at Western Springs, and allowed RFA to continue working on a plan for them to move to Waikaraka Park, while secretly negotiating with Clow and Deputy Mayor Bill Cashmore. Other councillors only learned what was happening hours before a public announcement of the deal on June 8.

At the same time, a New Zealand Herald report, featuring Clow, talked about how the move would open up the venue for a new cricket stadium. Some councillors said that ran counter to a briefing from Clow that the speedway decision was a standalone one which wouldn't impact on decisions around cricket.

It sparked a flurry of angry emails – obtained by Stuff – between councillors.

Fletcher wrote she 'feels betrayed' and withdrew any support for the Colin Dale move.

Councillor Mike Lee wrote: 'It all seems pretty cynical. A hurried 'urgent' briefing to cover butt with the councillors without letting on involvement in a major story in the press. Nothing can be taken at its word'.

Councillor Daniel Newman wrote: 'There is probably little point attending briefings as I simply need to buy a copy of the Herald instead.'

Councillor Cathy Casey: 'I am sick of being treated like an untrustworthy bystander to the mayor's grand plans.'

Councillor Josephine Bartley, whose ward covers Waikaraka Park, to where Springs Promotions were originally expected to move operations, wrote: 'If Cr Casey feels like a bystander, I, on behalf of Waikaraka Park, feel like the other woman, strung along then dumped for another option.'

'A BACKROOM DEAL'

Fletcher said the speedway move had been a 'boys' club backroom deal' and was one of several examples of secret deals that caused 'frustration and betrayal, anything but collegiality.

'The Mayor runs a very elitist governance structure . . . the fact is it's a bit of a boys' club'.

Watson described the negotiations as 'Machiavellian', saying: 'Councillors have had no oversight of this at all . . . speedway fans feel betrayed – well, a good number of councillors feel betrayed.'

He said it was clear despite Clow's assurances the speedway move was designed to start a domino effect of moving speedway to Colin Dale, cricket to Western Springs, and the eventual closure of Eden Park.

'A degree of duplicity and deceit has unfortunately characterised the whole saga: it will have some bearing on the outcome of the vote, but whether it is enough, only time will tell.'

Clow said he didn't regret his comments about the speedway deal being part of a broader stadium strategy to move cricket out of Eden Park, despite it sparking that furious email chain.

He said his comments had been misunderstood, and he hadn't proposed the speedway move as part of a plan to shift cricket.

'I don't want to withdraw or contradict my statements but I didn't focus on Eden Park at all: my focus was on Colin Dale. Eden Park, that's way out: that's 10 years-plus out.'

Watson, meanwhile, was at loggerheads with RFA, who he accused of a 'spending frenzy of public money' after internal council documents showed the venues body had spent $500,000 on scoping potential moves for speedway to Waikaraka Park and Mt Smart, both since shelved.

He said the RFA had declined his request to release the Heads of Agreement signed with NZ Cricket.

In a statement, RFA's stadiums director Paul Nisbet said it had engaged in 'commercially sensitive' talks with NZ Cricket and had 'entered into a Heads of Agreement with NZ Cricket for the option of Western Springs being repurposed for cricket'.

Nisbet said he would be updating council this week on those talks and 'hope to be in a position to publicly announce more details about planning for Western Springs in due course'.