Proposed Artificial Football Turf Update
We wish to connect with our Manawatu football community about the decision made on Wednesday by the Palmerston North City Council (PNCC) pertaining to a proposed artificial football turf. Many stakeholders will be aware of that decision given the local media story following Wednesday’s meeting, the link to which is below.
To provide some background, the build of a football specific artificial turf has been in PNCC’s Long Term Plan (LTP) since 2015. That came as a result of Central Football presenting the need to Council around that time. Central Football have always maintained that the best place for a football specific artificial turf would be at Massey University. The venue there has everything football needs in terms of infrastructure to support a facility such as car parking, existing changing facilities, power infrastructure to support floodlighting, several other grass football pitches plus the potential use of University or Sports and Rugby Institute facilities to support the running of tournaments and training programs. It basically fits the brief of what we believe to be a genuine “Home of Football” facility. Central Football’s preference for Massey has been reinforced by a Feasibility Study commissioned by PNCC, which considered five potential sites for the turf and concluded the University as the most suitable.
So, to bring you up to speed, at Wednesday’s meeting of the Council’s Culture and Sports Committee, the recommendation to the meeting that Council Officers commence discussions with Massey University and Central Football with the view to forming a partnership was rejected by majority vote. A further recommendation was passed by majority vote to investigate the build of a football specific artificial turf at Central Energy Trust Arena, thus providing two turfs at Arena.
Whilst appreciating that PNCC are committed to providing the football turf, Central Football are very disappointed with the outcome that the Massey University recommendation was rejected. As our football community know, and as pointed out above, the space that the University has would have allowed for a community asset for our game that cannot be rivalled by any other site in the greater Palmerston North area. To truly evidence this, Central Football were delighted that PNCC did commission an independent study, which again reinforced the Federation’s thinking.
We are at somewhat of loss how the decision on Wednesday was arrived at, and to be quite blunt, the naivety of some Councillors to the needs of our game even though it is demonstrated in their very own report. This naivety is somewhat evidenced by the media article which infers that two artificial turfs alongside each other will meet football’s need. How two fields will accommodate junior hubs, development training and large-scale events, or enable regional or national tournaments to be held in Palmerston North, is somewhat mystifying – and again the clear lack of understanding is disappointing.
So, where to from here? Clearly this decision is fairly recent and Central Football needs to consider its next steps. But in the interest of keeping our stakeholders well informed it was important to us to communicate our position, and our continued commitment to a further turf in Palmerston North. We will stay connected as “where to next” becomes clearer.
- Central Football CEO - Darren Mason
Article added: Friday 10 March 2023
