Any students out there with nothing to do? Perhaps we could get down there and film 24 hours of usage at Petone rec, count the number of people using it and time, and then counter these arguments with fact based on whether remaining green space would be enough to service the users needs.
Shit that's a good idea. Time lapse of the rec.
Exactly. I don't know the area but I know council assets are often massively under utilised by the public, especially in a city like Wellington where the weather's often a big barrier for using said green space.
Interesting to think about those numbers...
At an absolute minimum the stadium could claim to be used by 8,000 - 10,000 people at least 12 times a year. In reality, it will be more than that if they can run other events there, conferences etc.
There's only 8,000 people even live in Petone. How many of those people regularly use the rec? I'll bet it's not even a quarter, so even if some outsiders come and play sport on it once in a while the usage numbers are probably well in favour of the stadium. Plus, we're not even talking about losing the whole rec. Not even close to it.
I'm sure opponents would fall back on the "loss of green space" argument but that implies recreation on green space is somehow superior to recreation taken inside a stadium, through watching sport. That's a purely subjective judgement. I'm sure there are many residents of Petone whose "usage" of the rec would actually increase if there was a stadium built there.