Goodman Park to get floodlights for soccer

March 12th, 2015
[by David Armstrong]

The desperate need to upgrade drainage at Memorial Park to make it fit for winter football has led to a recommendation that $65,000 be spent on installing floodlights at Goodman Park.

The Motueka Community Board debated and finally passed the move at its meeting on Tuesday, following a lot of confusion over which money was being swapped for which project,

Sportspark Motueka had been allocated money in the Annual Plan for work on its proposed northern rugby field but which could not yet proceed. Part of those funds had been shifted to allow for the Memorial Park drainage upgrade, with the rest going to floodlighting at Goodman Park.

The drainage repair work is about to start and will carry on through the winter months.

The floodlighting is needed because otherwise the 200-member Motueka Football Club would have nowhere to train over winter months. All agreed that the Memorial Park pitch is no longer fit for playing serious sport on as it is frequently "a quagmire".

The lights at Goodman Park will be of a standard suitable for training but not for night-time competition play.

The vote to move the funding sideways was passed on condition, insisted by Richard Horrell and Cr Barry Dowler, that the funds for the Sportspark work will be reinstated the following year, with none going to work at Goodman Park.

Car parking review
David Ogilvie raised the matter of the increasing problem of the number of parking spaces in Motueka during the busy half of the year, and asked whether the local situation will be looked at during the Council's District Car Parking Review this year.

A Council staff comment said that present parking space is sufficient for the bulk of the time and that Council's policy is "parking is never provided to meet the maximum requirement".

Given the likelihood that no more space will become available in the near future, the board agreed that it may have to look at imposing time restrictions on many of the spaces, of around one to three hours, to better manage what is available during the busy months.

Several commented on the fact that lots of spaces are held for the full day by employees at nearby businesses, so they did not have to walk so far to work. This attitude should not be taken as the norm, they agreed.

Special projects rules
Board members reported that none of them had received any significant negative feedback so far to their intention to raise the targeted rate used for Motueka special projects from $5 per year to $10. Therefore they intend to submit the idea to the Council's Long Term Plan.

This was subject to the need, as reported in this report last month (see our story here), for the rules and processes to be defined around what projects qualify and how the lists are prepared.

The board briefly considered two suggestions submitted by David Armstrong and board member David Ogilvie on how the process should work. They agreed that during the coming month the two suggestions be combined into a working document for consideration at the April community board meeting.

The Council staff representative at the meeting, Mike Drummond, pointed out that any project decided by the board will need to be approved by Council because TDC has responsibility of ensuring targeted rates are spent appropriately.

Public Forum
At the public forum which starts all community board meetings, several interesting suggestions were heard. Two representatives of the Motueka Football Club asked for the floodlights project at Goodman Park to go ahead.

Ian Miller suggested that part of Decks Reserve car park be covered, which would enhance the attraction of the Sunday market and make it less dependent on the weather.

Murray Hellewell pointed out that the Mahana woodworker, Woody Woodward, was moving down south soon and suggested that Motueka should purchase at least one of his creations to keep and display in Motueka.

Jim Butler spoke eloquently about why he supports the building of a new library in Decks Reserve, and how it could be financed. He also gave his approval to raising the 'special projects' targeted rate to $10 as this is spent within the local area on things that are important to locals.

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