Encouraging noises being made by Lianne Dalziel about the covered stadium project:

Dalziel said the stadium deal was a “white elephant” for the city and if elected mayor on October 12 one of her first calls would be to arrange a meeting with the Government to talk about new ways the stadium could progress with more outside investment.

Also interesting in this story was the idea put by council candidate Faimeh Burke that maybe, just maybe, some of the other Canterbury councils could contribute to a stadium:

It also appears money will not be coming from the two district councils that border Christchurch to the north and south. Both the Waimakariri and Selwyn district councils poured cold water on any suggestions their ratepayers should help pay for the stadium. The issue was raised by independent city council candidate Faimeh Burke who said other Canterbury councils should be contributing. “Why should it be just Christchurch ratepayers who pay the local public share? It will be a facility for the whole of Canterbury. The Wellington region built the Westpac Stadium, not just Wellington City ratepayers. That model should also apply here.”

Of course, people who live in these districts will expect to attend said stadium. Not that there are any stats on it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who choose to live in these post-suburban cultural wastelands were actually bigger consumers of rugby than the people who live in the CCC rating zone. Rolleston alone has tripled in size over the last seven years, and Selwyn district is the fasting growing region in the country. They have a rating base to match. But it’s the people who live here who will foot the bill for this thing that we didn’t ask for.

I don’t believe that a super-city model is right for Canterbury, but I do think we need to have a discussion about how Christchurch City interacts with it’s two neighbouring councils – who have benefited massively from the residential displacement caused by the quake, and whose citizens continue to use City Council facilities, and who work in City jobs – yet have council’s that refuse to contribute anything to the massive outlay on public facilities that the CCC is (being forced into) undertaking.

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