Gore Council apologises to netballers

The Gore District Council has apologised to Netball Eastern Southland for failing to inform it of possible structural defects at the MLT Event Centre before they played competition finals, but the council assures public the building is safe.

The council is now commissioning a second assessment of the building after a structural engineer found further defects in the building.

After cracks were found in concrete supporting walls of the seating area, the council had a structural engineer carry out an assessment last Friday – less than 24 hours before the seating area was used by NES as it hosted its finals day at the centre last Saturday.

Council chief executive Stephen Parry said there was a breakdown in communication after the defects were found and that was why Netball Eastern Southland had not been notified.

‘‘It’s our error and I’ve already apologised to Tracey [Powley], the president of Eastern netball.’’

Parry, yesterday, said a structural engineer carried out a ‘‘very preliminary assessment’’ but didn’t believe there was anything of urgency with regard to public or staff safety.

The council received a report from the engineer early on Monday evening [August 20], which recommended closing the seating area.

It was closed off the seating area on Monday night.

The council said the structural engineer during the construction of the building was Invercargill engineer Tony Major, who also worked on Stadium Southland.

Parry said the council would commission a detailed structural assessment of the entire building.

It is hoped to have this completed by October 2018.

The engineer who assessed the building last week ‘‘noticed a few strange things or peculiarities, shall we say, in terms of design,’’ Parry said. ‘‘. . .the structural engineer did say there’s nothing inherently unsafe about the complex and therefore there is no need to discontinue operating until that structural assessment is completed.’’

Major said he had visited the MLT Event Centre yesterday.

‘‘I think it’s a vast over-reaction by someone.’’

He would not comment further until he had seen the engineer’s assessment of the building.

WSP Opus’s assessment states as well as damage to the bleacher support wall below the seating area, damage was also found with perimeter concrete panels, which have damage to the top corner.

The report says that it is considered that the lateral loads being applied to the precast panel exceed the capacity of the weld plate connection detail.

Only some of the concrete encased steel columns were inspected due to low light, but two were found to have cracks. The report further says the method for reinforcing concrete encasement of structural steel used is ‘‘not one that we are familiar with.’’

The MLT Event Centre opened in 2009 and has a maximum capacity of 1000 people.

The Gore Multisports Centre Charitable Trust was responsible for overseeing its construction.

Attempts to contact former trustees have been unsuccessful.

Lyn Calder, of Calder Developments, the company that was involved in the building the event centre, said they had not been contacted by the Gore District Council.

‘‘We haven’t heard from them and we don’t know anything about it other than what we’ve seen in the paper. We haven’t seen the report so we can’t comment.’’

Parry said the Gore Aquatic Centre and the Ice Sports Southland ice rink would not be assessed because a different design team had been used on those parts of the complex.

‘‘. . .the structural engineer did say there’s nothing inherently unsafe about the complex and therefore there is no need to discontinue operating until that structural assessment is completed.’’ Stephen Parry