Fixing streets 'should come before fixing Eden Park'

Diane van Wetering wants her street improved before Eden Park. Picture / Greg Bowker

Diane van Wetering wants the basics fixed in her Sandringham street before the Auckland City Council spends $60 million-plus of ratepayers' money a few blocks away glitzing up Eden Park for the Rugby World Cup.

Things like repairing the badly cracked footpath and fixing the stormwater that runs down her driveway and into a retention tank the council made her and her husband, Carl, install when they renovated their Fowlds Ave home.

After it rains, the footpath on Fowlds Ave becomes a "torrent" of water centimetres deep, forcing the van Weterings to go out in gumboots.

The birth of their first child, 12-week-old Caspar, also highlighted the "lack of council foresight" with walkways in the area. Diane cannot fit a pram through barriers designed to stop skateboarders.

"These problems are just small fish in a big pond one might say, but it is our pond and we pay rates to keep it well filtered and oxygenated so our babies can grow up in the local environment," Diane van Wetering said.

"It is ironic that we can't have our day-to-day needs met, but the council is prepared to spend money up the road on a stadium I think the rugby union should be paying for."

The council's decision to put at least $60 million into the $320 million Eden Park upgrade, and possibly more than $100 million towards expanding the ground from 47,500 seats to 60,000, has drawn an angry response to the Herald's Soaring Rates series this week.

Last year Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard promised that this year's rates increase would be "significantly less" than last year's 9.7 per cent overall increase.

This year's overall increase was 6.8 per cent but the three-yearly revaluation process led to a 13.4 per cent rise in household rates.

Mr Hubbard and his City Vision/Labour-controlled council plan to increase household rates by 135 per cent and water bills by 50 per cent over the next 10 years to pay for a $2.3 billion capital works programme, including Eden Park.

"Why is Auckland City having to cough up millions (on Eden Park) for the benefit of those living in greater Auckland. This will be a great white elephant for the future," said another ratepayer, Michael Rice.

Other councils in the Auckland region are refusing to pay a cent towards Eden Park, leaving Auckland City's 162,000 ratepayers paying for a large chunk of the biggest sporting event in the world behind the Olympics and the Soccer World Cup.

Another ratepayer, Bernie, questioned why ratepayers, particularly superannuitants, were paying for improvements to Eden Park when they would probably never go there.

"Why not get more money from cash-rich rugby - look at the ticket prices and the rich corporates in their boxes who go to Eden Park." he said.

The council's finance committee will today consider a request to increase a council loan to the Eden Park Trust Board by $2.5 million to pay for design work and consultancy costs for the early stages of the upgrade. The board received a $10 million council loan in 1998, and it now owes about $5 million.