Upgrading ‘dire’ facilities

SET TO CHANGE: The sight of waka ama stacked up at the Marina could be a thing of the past with pre-construction work under way for storage facilities there and at Anzac Park. File picture

Gisborne District Council is continuing its push with central government over an extensive multimillion-dollar proposal to upgrade sports facilities in the region.

The council is seeking $85 million to $110 million from the Government over the coming decade for upgrades to what it describes as “dire” facilities in Tairāwhiti.

The work includes maintenance on ageing buildings, leaky roofs and fields prone to flooding, as well as new projects such as a court sports hub at Victoria Domain, an indoor sports hub in Kaiti and river sports facilities.

Up the Coast, there are plans to introduce an indoor facility in Ruatoria and a new community gym in Tolaga Bay.

Tokomaru Bay and Te Araroa are in line for new playzones.

Councillors last week received an update on where the proposal was at.

Mayor Rehette Stoltz said the business case for the investment had been presented to Minister of Sport and Finance Grant Robertson, along with MPs Meka Whaitiri (Ikaroa Rāwhiti) and Kiri Allan (East Coast).

Council liveable communities acting director De-Arne Sutherland said the situation looked “promising”.

“We’re currently in discussions directly with central government. Those updates will be fed back to this group and correspondence has been great to date.”

The required investment of $118m has already received a commitment of $15m from Trust Tairāwhiti and $3.4m from Gisborne District Council.

The plan was developed by Trust Tairāwhiti and Sports Gisborne-Tairāwhiti over the last two years and the Government has already provided some funding through the Crown Infrastructure Partners Covid recovery initiatives.

In the report presented to the district council on Thursday, councillors were told replacing the ageing infrastructure was beyond the capability of regional organisations alone.

Mayor Stoltz described the proposal as a “massive” amount of work.

“I want to applaud you for not just focusing on the city because often we do forget that we serve the whole region.

“People up the Coast and people to the west deserve the same as people in the city.

“Now it’s fingers crossed. We’ve raised it with the Minister of Finance. Hopefully they will incorporate us in budgets to come.”

Cr Andy Cranston said it was “very exciting” the proposal had landed in Wellington. “Even though it’s $100 million, let’s look at it as $10 million a year and it kind of sounds better.”

According to the council’s business case, Tairāwhiti has the lowest rate of provision of public indoor courts in New Zealand.

The YMCA has the only indoor court facility available to the public and three additional facilities are owned by schools in the region.

Trust Tairāwhiti’s commitment of $15m in principle over the next 10 years would go towards a suite of “early win” projects in the business case.

“To date the trust has funded $2.9m towards the skatepark redevelopment, pump track and a due diligence pilot project to support the other early win initiatives,” Trust Tairāwhiti general manager communities Audine Grace-Kutia said.

The first stage of the skatepark redevelopment is complete and open to the public. The second stage and pump track are due for completion in 2023.

Pre-construction work is under way for waka ama storage facilities at Anzac and Marina parks in Gisborne.

Upgrades planned for Whakarua Park in Ruatoria include field and stand upgrades and a multi-use indoor facility.

■ Local Democracy Reporting is public interest journalism funded through NZ on Air.