Proposal to spend $55m could mark end of closed sports fields
Thursday, 16 May 2024
A plan to shake Christchurch’s reputation for having some of the worst sports fields in the country has been given the green light, but how much the council is willing to fund it won’t be decided until June.
City councillors heard at the Wednesday full council meeting it could cost $54.8 million to upgrade fields across the city, as part of a new sports field network plan.
The plan - which has been in the works since 2018 - doesn’t say when or which fields would be upgraded, or how many multi-sport artificial turf fields will be built, but council staff says it gives them the framework needed to start making decisions.
According to figures in the plan, 30% of council-owned sports fields had to be closed last winter because of wet weather, and more than 50% of fields were of below average or poor quality.
The data was backed by a nationwide survey of football players last year, by Football NZ, which found Christchurch had the worst quality playing facilities in New Zealand.
Fields like on Centennial Park were “thrashed” during the football season, with as many as 800 kids playing on a Saturday, Mainland Football Federation chief executive Martin Field-Dodgson told councillors during his long term plan submission last week.
Field-Dodgson said although Christchurch’s sports organisations couldn’t operate without council providing access to cheap or free fields and facilities, and they were grateful, the system was significantly under pressure.
He said clubs were having to implement waiting lists and organisations wanted urgent action to ensure they could keep growing.
However, if some fields were made of artificial turf they could be used in any weather, and be able to withstand multiple games on the one day.
As part of the new plan, council staff are recommending spending more than $50m between 2029 and 2034, resulting in a rates rise of 0.1% each year during that time.
If they did nothing, staff said it would make the problem more expensive to fix in future, and the Christchurch sports community (consisting of more than 2300 sports teams) would react poorly.
The council currently funded up to $2m a year on renewing or upgrading sports fields, including irrigation systems, but that represented work on just two or three fields a year.
According to figures in the plan, there were 139,930 affiliated sports members in Christchurch in 2022, which was an increase of 3% on the year prior.
The largest sport was touch rugby, with 17,300 members, followed by rugby at 14,250, cricket at 13,000 and football at 10,980.
Each sport had fewer members than they did in 2018, however the figure may not include people who want to play a sport but were unable to due to team limits.
Cashmere Technical Football Club board member Daniel Herd told councillors in his long term plan submission last week the club had grown by 30% in the past five years and had a waiting list.
About 62,000 of all sports members (as of 2022) were affiliated to sport played on natural turf, yet council sports fields were closed over three weekends during the winter playing season (representing 30% of available playing days) due to bad weather.
An independent analysis of sports field condition in 2022 found only three parks (9% of the network) were of high quality, while 15 parks (46%) were below average and two were of very low quality.
Cashmere and Riccarton stood out for having the worst access to quality green playing space.
The sports field network plan also noted that, according to NIWA, Christchurch’s winters are expected to get wetter over time.
Councillors will decide how much the council invests in the plan during its long term plan deliberations in June.
– Additional reporting by Sophie Lapsley