Mount Maunganui Cricket Club's Andrew Hoogstraten in Blake Park. Photo / Andrew Warner
Mount Maunganui Cricket Club's Andrew Hoogstraten in Blake Park. Photo / Andrew Warner
After 50 years at Blake Park, the Mount Maunganui Cricket Club says it is homeless on its home ground.
The club has no operations centre, the Tauranga City Council has ripped up the wicket it promised to provide and the club is sick of being "shunted around" the park.
The council has agreed to set up a working group to investigate both a short-term solution for the upcoming cricket season, and help the club find a long-term home.
But there will be no guarantees with Blake Park under increasing pressure from the groups that use it, including the New Zealand Sevens programme.
The cricket club gave up its original pitch and building in the park in 2015 to allow neighbouring hockey turfs and Bay Oval to expand.
The club moved into the Mount Sports Club - also home to Mount rugby, touch, netball and squash - and, as agreed, the council built a grass wicket between the No2 and No3 rugby fields in front of the clubrooms.
Cricket club spokesman Andrew Hoogstraten said the arrangement was workable but not perfect, with a low-scoring wicket and too little storage space for pitch covers and valuable gear bags.
Then, last year, the council ripped up the wicket.
Hoogstraten said it was a shock as there was "no formal consultation" with the club.
Mount Maunganui Cricket Club's Andrew Hoogstraten in Blake Park. Photo / Andrew Warner
"If [the council] did talk to anyone, it was not the right people."
Council parks and recreation manager Mark Smith said the council consulted the Western Bay Cricket Association and met with Mount representatives at least twice.
He said the wicket was compromising both rugby and cricket.
At 65m, the rugby fields were "narrower than best practice" (70m) and the groundsman struggled to maintain a quality wicket in a thoroughfare.
Blake Park had two other wickets the club could use, he said.
Since the wicket was removed, the club has asked the council six times for a solution.
In the meantime, the distance between Mount Sports and the two wickets has caused issues.
Bay Oval's success in securing bigger fixtures - including internationals - meant it could offer the club little use of its facilities, and the arrangement with Mount Sports lapsed with the cricket club unwilling to sign on as an affiliated member amid the uncertainty.
The Black Caps vs India One Day International at Bay Oval in January. Photo / File
"We are officially homeless," Hoogstraten said. "The club does not have a presence at Blake Park."
A proposal by council staff to reinstate the wicket and shrink the rugby fields - at a cost of $80,000 then $24,000 a year for maintenance - was opposed by both codes.
Hoogstraten said it was a waste of money and a short-term solution, given rugby's growth, which the cricket club supported.
"That ship has sailed."
He said the club had to take a stand.
"A lot of promises have been made with no follow-through."
Blake Park's summer layout. The No1 cricket wicket has been removed. Graphic / Tauranga City Council
Reinstatement was also rejected by the council, which voted to instead set up the working group and assigned Deputy Mayor Kelvin Clout and councillors John Robson and Steve Morris to it.
Hoogstraten said the club's ideal was to build an operations centre near the two wickets, and was happy to pay most of the costs and share the facility.
He said the club was the biggest in the Bay and had 700 people play last season including juniors, seniors and twilight business-house cricketers.
But council staff said there was no suitable space.
Bay Oval Trust general manager Kelvin Jones cautioned against adding more buildings to Blake Park.
Bay Oval Trust general manager Kelvin Jones. Photo / File
He reckoned the club should stay with Mount Sports and reinstate the wicket and believed the width of the rugby fields was not as big an issue as suggested.
"In a way, the cricket club has been the big loser in the expansion of rugby."
Mount Sports Club rugby president Graeme Coley said he felt sorry for the cricket club and the process the council put it through.
The narrowness of the rugby fields had, however, been a real problem for both players and spectators, had caused safety issues and did not help solve overloading issues with the No1 field.
He said it was good to see the council taking a leadership role.
