Yarrow Stadium dreaming

The Yarrow Stadium is generating more letters, many of which are prime examples of wishful woolly thinking.

Over the past weeks writers have backed the upgrade on the perceived need for a venue for provincial and community sport (mainly rugby) and as a centre for corporate events and other social functions.

Added to this are the writers advocating the development of the New Plymouth racecourse to cater for these events.

The only common theme among the lot is the dropping of international aspirations to focus on community activities and of course the assumption that a miracle vaccine will soon be developed and all will be back to normal.

This is all la-la land stuff. Effective vaccines take a long time to develop, and for this Covid-19 strain probably much longer as the virus mutates.

History shows that while science can contain various viruses, bugs, germs etc causing plagues pestilence and epidemics, the prime causes are never eradicated. Viruses, bugs, germs and so on lie dormant to erupt later.

This all means our post Covid-19 world will be very different with fluctuating restrictions on travel and public gatherings for a very long time. The one constant will be economic. All business sectors will be struggling to survive with no spare funds for holding conventions or providing sponsorship. Household discretionary spending will also be severely cut.

With those cold facts even suggestions that the Yarrow upgrade could be funded as part of the Government’s shovel-ready project are just wishful dreams.

While Government funding may meet some of the cost, bearing in mind that all public-funded projects invariably run over initial costs, Taranaki ratepayers will still have to carry the burden of never ending but ever-increasing operational and maintenance costs with little chance of local, let alone international, crowds lining up and paying to use the swanky new facilities.

Covid-19 is a marvellous opportunity to ditch the entire upgrade project, sell the site for much-needed housing, funded of course by the Government shovel-ready project.

Even better, turn the site into an international memorial park for all the hundreds of thousands of victims in the world who’ve suffered the indignity of burial in massed unmarked graves. Helen Pickford,

Eltham