Need for new sports facilities ‘desperate’

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

EASTLAND Community Trust is laying Gisborne’s “desperate need” for new sporting facilities squarely at the feet of local government as it contemplates becoming more “ruthless” when deciding which community projects to fund.

ECT’s monthly public meeting heard it was possible that Sport NZ’s funding model for Sport Gisborne Tairawhiti could be about to change, putting further pressure on local funding sources, even though an ECT-funded sporting infrastructure study had shown that, like most other parts of New Zealand, this region is in desperate need of a sports asset management and replacement strategy.

Trustee Vicki Thorpe said while the study had been informative, it was not ECT’s role to take it any further.

“We spent the money on the project of getting the report, which no one else was going to do," she said.

“That has helped inform us in our decision making but in terms of strategy I don’t see that as part of our work. We have got the information to help others but I don’t necessarily see it as us doing it.

“I hope the council will pick it up and do something concrete with it. We may need to be a little bit more ruthless about what we can and can’t achieve, and what we need to prioritise and what can be sensibly shifted to someone else, because we don’t have the capacity to do everything.”

A report revealed that in the six months to the end of September the trust had already approved distributions worth about $1.9 million, after receiving more than $4.7 million-worth of applications.

The trust’s positive major funding pool alone is now oversubscribed, with more than three times the amount of funding being requested for the $850,000 available this year. Trustee Philip Searle said the sports facility issue was now for Gisborne District Council to consider, rather than ECT.

Although ECT may well do something about the issue, the trust should be careful not to raise expectations, he said. Fellow trustee and Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon said he favoured a combined approach.

The study, conducted in 2012, said Gisborne was unlike most other regions because it had no indoor facilities that were funded by the local council and many sporting codes were operating in facilities that were “no longer fully fit for purpose”.

The report highlighted several key needs, including the need to replace the ageing Olympic Pool Complex with an indoor aquatic centre, as well as the need for a regional indoor stadium that could provide a fully compliant event court with spectator seating (1000–1500) within a three-court facility.

Gisborne also needed a replacement regional hub for gymsports (including trampoline) through development of a new “human movement centre”, along with a need to consolidate investment in one regional spectator arena for rugby, rugby league and football.

At the community level the report noted there was a need in Ruatoria and Kaiti for the provision of indoor courts to fill gaps in the district-wide network.

The need for a regional hockey hub and synthetic playing surface was also noted in the study. This was achieved with the opening of the LJ Hooker hockey turf.