Astro Turf Lobbying

Astro Turf Lobbying

We need your urgent help, to help you and your game! We are in real danger of losing some of the critical momentum with local Councils that we had generated together to progress much-needed artificial pitches, especially in Wellington City.

We are seeking your support for an intense 4 day campaign to lobby Wellington City and Hutt City Councillors (Councillors not officers) regarding the need for artificial pitches.

Please act now!  Get the message across in the next 4 days leading up to 20th February!

�             E-mail longtermplan@wcc.govt.nz by 20th Feb for Wellington City Council, and/or joyanne.stevens@huttcity.govt.nz for Hutt City Council (headed �LTCCP Submission 09/10�).

�             Ring the WCC hot lines � Councillors are available each week on Thursday evenings between 7.00 and 9.00 pm until the end of February: (04) 499 4444

�             Talk to your local Councillors

�             Send a letter on behalf of your Club to all Councillors

o             Wellington: councillors@wcc.govt.nz

o             Hutt City: http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/Council/Council-Committee-Membership/Mayor-and-Councillors/

�             Write letters to the editor of The Dominion Post: letters@dompost.co.nz

�             Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper.

i've heard that there will be a cap on the number of teams/players in the wellington area, to reduce the strain on the pitches... this is effectively telling people that they can not play!

Yeah,  we want to put a second masters team out of Naenae but looks like we're no chance.

There is urgency to get responses in. The council are now drafting their 10year plan! It seams that the councils have been receptive to input so lets make sure that we take the opportunity to stress the need for more pitches.

last season was frustrating with all the cancellations.

If they can build a multi million dollar netball (farken) facility in Kilbirnie then why the hell can't they properly resource the biggest sport in town?!

Thanks to SuperAndy they can't.  

Im a big supporter of artificial turf... there is recent studies showing the cost of artificial turf over 10 years is lower than maintaining a traditional pitch. They are especially good for replacing high use training grounds. Tanks fir the heads up i will be making a submission.

yeah, councils hate football

oops, just broke my code of conduct and expressed a personal opinon

and made my first post for two weeks....


..why is there anti council feeling? policy is one thing, but in all our local authorities there are football lovers who advocate daily, in deed and action, for representation for football.

anyway, it seems like Rugby League needs more help than football, maybe thats where the moolah and energy should go. at least we are world champions. not many team sports we can say that about at the moment.

17,000 players nationwide vs ?

And a board that just all got fired, cause they are a freaking shambles.

Sure help em out, but football is the future

Leagues admin is screwed - agreed but that's about it! and SPARC are giving the $450,000 if they sort it out! At least they have enough grounds to play on, we on the other hand are hamstrung by the lack of facilities in a growing sport - f**k league!

7 Federations anyone. Hahaha.

That's not to say there aren't good people in those organisations Salmon, like your fine self and other football lovers.

I sent of an email last night, got three replies from various councellors in a matter of minutes. One with a standard - your a little early but we are working on it, the other two were a little more positive.

The facebook group has been set up, join NOW.

link

joined group and have sent emails

Yep, same group

6 replies thus far from council members, John Morrison the latest

Yeah I've got five emails back, all from WCC nothing from LHCC yet lol.

A couple were very enthusiastic towards the idea, a couple just sent one paragraph replys and one was fairly negative am I allowed to name names?? This was part of the email

"In addition, our residential communities (particularly people on fixed or low income) are calling for us to keep rates at or below inflation.  I would be interested in your views as to your organisations willingness to pay the full operational costs of delivering them or alternatively where we should be trimming budgets in order to deliver them across the city whilst maintaining the general rate at or below inflation"

Well I'd definitely pay to have access to better grounds.

Also, I missed out on this, but which numb skull decided Khandallah was the best place to "trial" these artificial pitches, there's only two clubs nearby that I can think of???

not entirely sure of history but Onslow would be one of the strongest junior clubs i am pretty sure, and that is there home grown-oops summer events on the mind, i mean home ground

Ill let Glenn know you think he's a numb skull though, cute.
Salmon072009-02-18 23:10:04

The other thing to remeber here MonkeyBoy is that it is the Wellington council. 

The Hutt fight is a whole new battle.

I would DEFINITELY pay to play on some Astro Turf.  Torne2009-02-19 07:10:01

Here's your answer Monkey Boy.

They should can the 12 indoor courts at Kilbirnie which will cost $46m (approx. $4m per court) and are in the wrong f**king place for most Wellington residents; spend a fraction of that money on installing 10-12 artificials all around Wellington ($12m - $15m all up, assuming approx. $1m per pitch plus a bit for lights, cost overruns etc); and still have over $30m in savings to give back to ratepayers.

I know the indoor sports will bitch and moan but we're in a recession ffs. 12 artificials in Wellington would deliver just as much benefit to sport in general as the indoor courts would (probably more, although I don't have all the playing numbers in front of me to make a reasonable comparison) but at a fraction of the cost.

Put that in a reply back to your council friend.

I think they just wanted to do a "pilot" to make sure the artificials are actually as good as they are meant to be and validate the costs involved etc.

Like buying a test pot from Resene!

But it is painful watching the wheels turn at the council sometimes...

Yeah I've heard same about rugby teams on Onslow turf.  I'm hoping it's a yarn but that did used to be a rugby training area so I bet some deal has been done.

We dont need artificals to play on, there isnt a ground shortage in Wellington. The available grounds are just being badly managed by the councils and Capital Football who have a blinkered approach of how to run football in this region. Hopefully the new operations manager can make them see some sense.

Please explain...

Have been involved on the WRFU negotiations with clubs and WCC over these turfs, Rugby has as bigger issue as football does in finding enough pitches to play on. I have enjoyed/been exasperated by reading some of the responses we have been getting from clubs on this, going on about how this is a must and how they would travel and what not but then wouldn't be prepared to pay anymore.
It seems to me like Capital Football and the WRFU should really be putting on a united front for this, not sure if this has been the case thus far but certainly it should be an opportunity for the codes to work together to solve the issues that all the winter codes share