A collaborative approach to sport hub
Following recent coverage of Taranaki Racing Incorporated (TRI) and the New Plymouth Multi-Sport Hub project, it is important to clarify the process leading to the draft master plan document.
The process balances evidence-driven sector and key stakeholder needs alongside best design practice to ensure this is much more than a sport facility.
All groups involved are working for a collaborative solution to provide essential social infrastructure for community wellbeing for generations to come – an equitable use of valuable public space.
This process has been robust, timely and collaborative following the best practice of Sport New Zealand’s Hub Guide.
It has drawn on local expertise and consultants with a wealth of experience in social infrastructure. A project board including New Plymouth District Council, Te Kotahitanga o Te
Atiawa and Sport Taranaki has overseen this.
Seventeen organisations (including 11 sports codes) signed a terms of reference document in 2019 agreeing to be involved in the project. This group is known as the Sports Collective. TRI and the New Plymouth Pony Club declined to sign, while other codes decided not to engage further in the process during the planning stages.
Following a thorough sporting needs assessment of those codes with the greatest facility challenges, participation rates, and/or rates of growth, the preferred location was determined using a robust selection criterion and scoring process across a number of sites.
More recently, a raft of design options was developed and refined into a preferred option that met the needs of the key stakeholders and the project’s design principles.
The draft master plan (preferred option) was favoured by all stakeholders except TRI.
An expert panel also scored it the highest against the design principles and it was then endorsed by the project board.
While TRI opted out of the Sports Collective, we have been in constant communication with them via their chief executive.
They are the only board who have been directly briefed at key project milestones. Until recently they said inner track development, including buildings, was possible if the start line and final 800 metres remained visible, although this has never been their preferred option.
We have communicated with the New Plymouth Pony Club and offered funding to help them develop an equestrian facility network plan to assist in determining their best future location.
They have not yet taken up this offer. We remain committed to leading a collaborative process to create a community hub used by thousands of people weekly for generations to come.