Taranaki Hockey calls for urgent rethink on community hub plans

Taranaki Hockey is calling for an urgent rethink of the planned stages of the Tūparikino Active Community Hub as it struggles to accommodate burgeoning player numbers at its single site in New Plymouth.

Under the previous plan, a new hockey turf would have been built this year in the infield of the New Plymouth Raceway to compliment the Hobson St turf which is used seven days a week throughout the winter.

However, that plan changed a fortnight ago when it was revealed the hub’s governance group had opted to build a new stadium in phase one of the $110 million project, which is earmarked to receive $40 million from New Plymouth ratepayers.

The decision pushes the artificial turfs, playing fields and in-field facility out to an unspecified start date.

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“We don’t see why we can’t be included in that stage one,” Taranaki Hockey executive officer Denise Hill said.

Hill, and Taranaki Hockey board chairperson Allister Thomas, have written to New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom and councillors to express their “extreme disappointment” about the changes to the project.

“We think it is a viable option if they just build the hockey turf inside the racecourse and delay the other development,” Hill said.

Six years ago the Taranaki regional sport facility strategy identified an additional hockey turf in New Plymouth as urgent to meet the demands of the 2300 players who use the Hobson St site across the whole year.

While he sympathised greatly with Taranaki Hockey, Tūparikino Active Community Hub governance group chairperson Lyal French-Wright said the changes were necessary to give the project the best chance of receiving central Government funding and actually going ahead.

“I understand they will be disappointed because they have been huge supporters of the project as a whole right from the start,” he said.

“From a project point of view, we still value them completely, but if we want it to have the optimal chance of going ahead with the whole thing being done, then we had to change the phasing of it in this way.”

French-Wright said Taranaki Hockey was the perfect example of why the hub needed to go ahead because facilities were under considerable strain to keep up with demand.

“Like volleyball do and like basketball do, they know they need it (hub) now.”

Taranaki Synthetic Sports Trust chairperson Lloyd Morgan, who is in charge of the Hobson St site, believed hockey had been short-changed, and not just in the revised hub plan.

“NPDC has not provided facilities since the advent of turf hockey (1997) while supplying and maintaining the same for most codes,” he said.

“Further, the amount of use at a single venue is extremely efficient in terms of provisioning.”