Rotorua sports fields delayed up to a year after ‘long’ consenting process

Land at Titoki Place has been identified as a potential sports field location. Photo / Mathew Nash

Rotorua may have to wait at least another year for new sports fields at a site identified for that purpose more than 25 years ago.

The delay to work at Titoki Place, which backs on to Ray Boord Park Reserve, was outlined to councillors in a meeting yesterday.

According to council documents, the site has been earmarked for sporting use since the turn of the century, when the council bought it from the Crown for $151,875 in January 2000.

In the years since, it has instead served as a stockpile area for fill from other projects, including the Westbrook netball complex.

Two sport fields would be placed at the Titoki Pl site. Photo / Mathew Nash

In 2019, the land was sold to Kāinga Ora for social housing, but the sale conditions were never met, owing to cost and suitability concerns.

The council retained the site in 2023 with the renewed aim of developing two sports fields.

That decision followed the abandonment of the contentious Westbrook Sports and Recreation Precinct proposal, which would have replaced the Springfield Golf Course with a mix of housing and playing fields.

The council had initially hoped the new Titoki Place fields would be ready for the 2026/27 summer season. On Wednesday, however, officials said the timeline would not be met.

“We are expecting a six-to-12-month delay,” parks and open spaces manager Rob Pitkethley said.

Rotorua Lakes Council's parks and open spaces manager, Rob Pitkethley. Photo / Andrew Warner

He said he remained hopeful the delay would be closer to six months and not a year, after what he described as a “very long” consenting process, with stormwater issues proving the main obstacle.

“The intention was that construction would already be underway.

“We may now face a seasonal delay, with work potentially pushed beyond the wettest part of winter.”

Rotorua has long faced a shortage of sports field capacity.

A 2023 assessment found a shortfall of at least 29 hours of field capacity per week – roughly equivalent to three full-size fields. That gap was projected to widen to 93 hours by 2033, or about nine fields.

Titoki Pl field has been used to store fill from other sites, despite being listed as a potential sport field location since 2000. Photo / Mathew Nash

In November 2024, the council adopted a Play, Active Recreation and Sport Strategy, outlining plans to investigate up to five new fields, covering about 11ha.

The strategy also emphasised the need to make better use of existing fields.

Pitkethley said the delay was unlikely to affect budgets. The council allocated $2 million over two years to the project in its 2024–34 Long-Term Plan.

In the meeting, councillors also received a museum update, approved changes to the local alcohol policy to require all off-licence premises to close at 9pm, and adopted new traffic bylaw and parking policy frameworks.

Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.