Weather delays start of summer sports

Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

The appalling weather of the past week coupled with a wet winter means the start of summer sports in some parts of the country could be delayed.

Recent rainfall has further saturated sports fields already water-logged after a wet August when some regions received record rainfall.

Summer sports in Wellington could be delayed by as much as three weeks.

Wellington City Council's sports fields manager Trevor Jackson said the grounds are so saturated the council is four weeks behind with scheduled work, including the renovation of cricket blocks, re-seeding of winter fields and re-levelling with topsoil and sand.

"Even if the weather and ground conditions changed dramatically over the coming week and we were able to get the required work under way, we are still looking at a delayed start to the summer season - which was officially due to begin at Labour Weekend.

The council is asking people to keep off the fields while the council works to bring them up to standard for the summer.

In August, 205mm of rain was recorded in Wellington, the most wet days in August in seven years, compared to 135mm in August last year.

Porirua and Hutt City Councils are also expecting a delay to the start of their summer sports seasons, as is the Kapiti Coast District Council, although not as long as the other.

We're lucky in that our soil profiles tend to dry out quicker than the heavier profiles elsewhere in the region and our climate is generally kinder," Kapiti Coast District Council's leisure and open space asset manager, Lex Bartlett said.

"As the fields are at the moment, we may experience only limited delays."

Touch rugby and softball should be unaffected, but cricket and athletics may face delays.

Despite the atrocious weather in Southland, Invercargill City Council's parks manager Robin Pagan was hopeful summer sports would begin early next month.

"Things change quickly," he said. "We've had an extremely good spell up until the last week or so.

"We're hopeful that we will now get some good weather to dry out the fields."

Dunedin is also looking to get cracking with summer sports, despite the poor weather.

"Summer sports itself won't be delayed, the only thing that will be delayed is renovation work on sports field," Howard Driver, the Dunedin City Council sports field and facilities officer said.

He said renovation work is two weeks behind because of the weather, and much of it will be put off until after Christmas.

But the grounds are fit for sport.

"If the weather is fine tomorrow, trial games of cricket will be played," Mr Driver said.