The proposed Christchurch Stadium is back in the news, again, as the project moves closer to starting construction. I’ve written about my opposition to the project a number of times, so won’t go into that again here. When the site for the stadium was announced, it was noted that the area wasn’t completely clear of buildings - the NG Building on Madras St was in the way. To defuse this controversy, the designers of the stadium said that the NG Building could be integrated into the stadium design, so we didn’t need to worry about. Now that we are getting closer to construction, it turns out they were lying. Ooops!
We’ve fought hard to retain a few scraps of heritage in the last decade, and I think that the results would justify the effort. The Town Hall is back; OGB and C1 are some of the most photographed buildings in the city; and more recently, roof-top bars have been the cherry on the top of both the Muse Art Hotel and the restored Public Trust building. The NG Building could be saved. It doesn’t even get in the way of the stadium - the developers just want a “blank canvas” to work on. Failing that, it could be moved off the site, and put back in service somewhere else in the city - it’s not like there is a shortage of empty sections. There is a Facebook group that has formed to try and Save the NG Building (called, funnily enough, Save the NG Building), and they also have a petition. They are also hosting an auction later in May to fundraise for their cause, with lots of great artists contributing work.
At the same time that Council are trying to push through this $500m +++ stadium with one of the flimsiest business cases around, they’re also trying to cut back on some of the core services that make a difference to thousands of residents. This includes cutting library hours, reducing the opening hours and outreach services of the Art Gallery, and closing the Riccarton bus lounge. I’d love to see them apply the same sort of line by line accounting to the stadium proposal, though I think it’s clear why they won’t. My concern with the stadium has always been the ongoing costs for the council to maintain it, and the impact that financing this behemoth will have on other council services. There was some unintentional common sense on this from the CEO of the Crusaders Colin Mansbridge, who
“said he was not sure if the extra investment to host a couple of rugby test matches was a good spend of taxpayer money. “You get to a point where it’s a trade-off between what can you afford to build and what you would like to build,” he said.”
He was talking about the number of seats in the stadium, but the underlying point remains. What are we, as a city, willing to “trade-off”? Libraries? Art galleries? Heritage buildings?
Developers telling untruths-never.
Seemingly the damp squib that is our Mayor can only be sparked into life by the prospect of a rugby match, while our roads remain in 3rd world condition, our cultural assets ,while poorly curated, are under threat in favour of the holy god of sport, lovely old buildings are in the way of a temple to bloody kick and chase...this only serves to prove that Chch is little more than a small town, trying oh so hard to be a big city.
Stuff sport-user pays and if rugby heads want a Stadium, let the players and associated hangers on finance and pay for it.