When being the best is not enough
There was probably nothing New Plymouth District Council could ever have done to keep top-level cricket at its world-famous Pukekura
Park.
Once this season is over it looks as though top-class cricket will never return, with players no longer willing to accept the beauty as positive ballast against the poor facilities and short boundaries.
They now rank it the second worst cricket ground in the country.
Unfortunately, the very things that make the ground so picturesque – its tree-topped embankments and its proximity to the CBD – are the things that stopped it developing while other cricket grounds around the country grew and evolved to meet modern requirements.
The cost-to-benefit ratio of spending millions on massive earthworks to make the ground bigger, and construction projects to keep the facilities up to scratch, was never going to be an easy thing to balance, financially or politically.
There are already enough demands on ratepayers without asking for more to ensure half-a-dozen games of cricket could continue at the city’s main park.
Top-level cricket has been the dead man walking at Pukekura Park for decades, but since 2012, when the council buckled to player demands in building a set of practice nets, the countdown became an audible tick.
Even then it was clear the nets were the tip of the iceberg and big changes were needed to keep cricket in the centre of New Plymouth.
No serious play has ever been made at bringing those changes into the long-term plans, and without retaining top-level cricket as the reason, it’s unlikely it ever will.
The loss of top-class matches is hardly the end of the world. Yes, the matches there have been a part of the Taranaki story for generations, but a diminishing one.
We’ll get used to not having top-level cricket if it goes, and its exit could allow the ground to be used for other events that don’t require the maintenance of a cricket pitch.
There is a lesson here that could be valuable to remember in future decisions, such as those around proposed changes to the Bowl of Brooklands.
Those who balk at changes in Pukekura Park tread a fine line. Yes, a handbrake on change can help us protect our most treasured assets.
It can also consign those assets to a future as expensive monuments to nostalgia.