Costs of relaxing rules cripples Eden Park events portfolio

Friday, 25 January 2019

The debate around Eden Park is ongoing. Residents views. First published in Sept 2018

Eden Park is forced to fork out tens of thousands of dollars to get around planning rules each time it wants to host concerts and day/night one day cricket games.

Eden Park Trust (EPT) chairman Doug McKay spoke to Stuff ahead of Thursday's release of the ground's annual report, which shows a net loss of $7.3 million.

He revealed Eden Park spent $60,000 just to add an hour of play to 2018's day/night test between the Black Caps and England.

The day/night test against England at Eden Park last year came with an up front cost of $60,000 to get around planning rules.

This summer, Eden Park is only hosting two T20s, with McKay saying it did not make financial sense for the ground to try and attract more day/night games.

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'We were very keen to host a one-dayer, even a couple, with India, but the Indian broadcasting situation meant we would have to run the game longer than our resource consent allows and it just doesn't make sense for us to go through a $60,000 process to try and get another hour and a half on a game,' he told Stuff.

'That's what happened with the day/night test for England – we had to spend $60,000 getting a resource consent for adding an hour to allow the day/night test.'

Eden Park is allowed to host 25 events each year, including six concerts.

'To make a resource consent change application you've got to provide all your evidence, you've got to do noise [assessments], there's a change of traffic management plan,' McKay said.

And the constraints on Eden Park were compounded by other problems, such as a deteriorating turf – EPT's request 2017 request to Auckland Council for $1.5m to replace the stadium's turf was turned down.

'It's now the oldest major stadium turf in the world – it's way past its warranty date,' McKay said.

'We live in dread that the lights or the screens might need a major repair or replacing some time, and if we were facing something like that then we would be in a major bind.'

McKay pointed to what he saw as a lack of financial support from the council, adding the five council-owned grounds got $27m in operating grants and $44 million in capital expenditure last year.

Eden Park also paid more than $320,000 in rates.

'[It would help] if we could have some financial support from the council,' McKay said.

'We deliver $25 million of economic benefit every time we have a big event here at Eden Park.'

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff had previously argued ratepayers were already committing millions of dollars to propping up Eden Park.

'We are guarantors for a loan that will eventually end up on council books, so it's disingenuous for the Eden Park Trust Board to say it's only a guarantee,' he said last November.

'The ratepayer will end up picking up $40m, plus the $6.5m they [Eden Park] owe – that's a lot of money we're putting in.'