North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Road delays National Hockey Centre
‘‘We'll end up with what we want, it will have just taken a bit longer.’’
The eyes of the hockey world will be on Albany next year when New Zealand hosts the FIH Women’s World League Final.
But the facility that will be beamed to an overseas audience will look a little different than Hockey New Zealand intended.
When New Zealand won the hosting rights in 2014, plans to transform North Harbour Hockey’s site into a National Hockey Centre were announced.
The hub for top-level hockey, which has $2.5 million backing from Sport New Zealand, was on track to start in mid-2015 with completion expected in 2016.
An upgraded viewing pavilion and lighting suitable for televised events were part of the redevelopment plans.
However New Zealand Transport’s Agency’s Northern Corridor Improvements project halted the hockey centre. A proposed realignment of Upper Harbour Highway (SH18) encroaches on the hockey site.
After seeing NZTA design proposals in early 2015, chairwoman of the Harbour Hockey Charitable Trust, Sharon Williamson, realised the project will have a bigger impact than anticipated.
‘‘All options go through the turf,’’ Williamson says.
NZTA’s Auckland highway manager, Brett Gliddon, says options are being investigated to ‘‘either reconfigure or relocate the [hockey] facilities, with a number of locations in the area being considered’’. NZTA is funding temporary measures so the Women’s World League Final and the World Masters Games events next year can still go ahead.
Harbour Hockey has three turfs at the site. Land set aside for a fourth turf that was to be operational in 2018/19, will be lost to the roading project.
The association’s headquarters is home for 11 clubs, 30 representative teams and teams from 99 schools. With 10,000 players using the facilities each week in winter, Harbour Hockey chief executive Riki Burgess says they are running at capacity. Turfs can’t be decommissioned without an alternative in place, Burgess says.
The National Hockey Centre was touted as a future-proofed community facility, a base for hockey’s high-performance programme and a venue attractive to FIH events. Williamson is still positive about finding a suitable outcome. ‘‘We’ll end up with what we want, it will have just taken a bit longer.’’