Principal slams ban on balls

An Auckland principal says Eden Park’s decision not to host school balls is “totally unfair” and a “kneejerk” reaction to incidents involving other schools.

Macleans College principal Steve Hargreaves told the Weekend Herald the school got a call “out of the blue” yesterday from the catering manager informing them all balls at the venue — including theirs which is booked in five weeks — had been cancelled due to recent trouble at one school ball.

The tickets had been printed and sold and Hargreaves said they would now struggle to find another venue in the city to accommodate them.

“This seems like a knee-jerk reaction from Eden Park management to one school ball incident that’s just happened. I think they need to be prepared to work with schools rather than just cut us off at the knees.”

Although the organisation offered two alternate venues — North Shore Events Centre and Mount Smart Stadium — Hargreaves said they were not suitable due to their location and size.

He said the venue still hosted other large events and the school had a long history of “incident-free” balls at Eden Park, which they would like to have taken into consideration.

“And not be lumped into schools that have had trouble.”

A spokesperson for Eden Park said that on a number of occasions over the past few years, there had been disruptive and potentially dangerous conduct in the streets around Eden Park while students were being dropped off or collected from balls.

“This has caused significant distress to local residents and posed a risk to the safety of our staff and potentially the students and teachers.

“While we understand this has not occurred at every school ball, and despite implementing additional security measures and protocols, the behaviour has now escalated to an unacceptable level and unfortunately means we cannot offer Eden Park as a ball venue to any school.”

Hargreaves said he had offered to mitigate complaints by locals about drop-offs and pick-ups by providing buses to the venue.

“It’s totally unfair, and I think they aren’t considering the fact that as a school we have a perfect track record and we are lined up to have another incident-free ball — all of the planning has been done.”