Field day

The latest and biggest addition to the ever-expanding home of sport in Nelson is almost ready for action. Geoff Collett looks at the success of Saxton Field.

Here's a newsflash: multimillion-dollar public project goes ahead in Nelson without endless bickering, recriminations, tarnished political careers, conspiracy theories, or even blood on the letters to the editor page.

But there it is Saxton Field, Nelson's playground, which over the past 12 months (more than at any other time in its 30-year history) has started to demonstrate its full potential as the heart of sport in this district a feat achieved with amazingly little fuss or even that much attention beyond those directly involved with it.

It is a sprawling testament to a collective of sports organisations that have, typically at the urging of a few far-sighted individuals, raised millions of dollars, determined that they are going to put their sport on the map in Nelson and beyond.

The latest and most notable addition to Saxton Field is nearing completion. Saxton Stadium is soon to become the new centre for basketballers, netballers, volleyballers and table tennis players from across Nelson. It has cost $13 million, shared among the sporting codes, the Nelson City Council and the Tasman District Council.

As Roger Ledingham, who heads the fundraising society that helped to drive the project, points out, it has worked its way through its years-long gestation and birth without "a single negative submission to the council about the whole project".

The stadium is the most obvious sign of the recent progress at the park, and no doubt, as with any project of such scale, it won't be entirely controversy-free.

Most obvious is the potential for scratchiness when the wider populace discovers that it has been built without any seating to speak of, to help keep the cost down and because, those behind it reason, it is intended for participants, not spectators.

There will be further room for behind-the-scenes squabbles and tensions over access and fees for use and so on as the multi-use nature of the building beds in.

But in the greater scheme of things, dwelling on those sorts of pressure points seems churlish right now. Big things are happening across the park, as sporting codes get down to the nitty-gritty of firmly embedding themselves at Saxton Field. One new pavilion is under way; another is searching for an architect.

Potential international fixtures are being eyed. National sporting bodies are sitting up and taking notice of what has emerged in Stoke. Everybody is confidently talking of the thousands of additional out-of-towners expected to flock to Nelson as the city pushes its way up the queue as a host venue for sports tournaments of every shape and size.

Nigel Muir, the recently appointed chief executive of Sport Tasman, recalls a recent June day that captured what he thinks Saxton Field is and could be: a sparkling Nelson winter weekend, the place crawling with kids and parents and curious passers-by; a national secondary schools cross-country competition under way; hordes of young athletes playing club football and netball, and the national women's hockey team, the Black Sticks, playing a friendly against India.

"It's a great testimonial to what can be achieved," Mr Muir says.

The origins of Saxton Field go back to the 1970s, when the Nelson City Council started buying up paddocks opposite the Stoke freezing works, just outside the city boundary in the old Waimea County, prompted by the lack of affordable flat land within Nelson.

When Andrew Petheram now the council's community projects manager arrived at the council in 1986, some basic sports fields had been developed, but he says it wasn't until the early 1990s that things really started happening, when the Tasman council decided to work alongside its neighbour on developing the site. It bought land to add to the pool, and more fields and outdoor courts were developed as the first codes recognised that this was where the future lay.

On current planning, it is still more than a decade before the park's full potential will be realised the councils have not yet taken possession of all the land that will eventually be included in its boundaries but as Mr Petheram says, the bulk of the significant sporting facilities are now in place or firmly on the drawing board; and as Mr Muir says, the present will be looked back on as the time when "critical mass" was achieved.

Athletics recently christened its all-weather running track, ending its 100-year-plus association with Trafalgar Park. Work has started on a pavilion for hockey and softball, both of which have international-standard playing facilities, with plans to add more.

The design contract will soon be advertised for another pavilion, for cricket, athletics and football, including spectator and player facilities.

An amenities block, including a scoreboard, for cricket is under way; drainage work on the outfield of the new cricket oval is planned, and practice strips are being laid.

The major project still to get out of the starting blocks is a cycling track, to replace the one at Trafalgar Park. Mr Petheram says that is on the books for about five years' time.

The various projects typically depend on the sporting codes taking a lead role, including in coming up with 20 per cent of the money needed, with the councils sharing the balance under a formula intended to reflect the park's proximity to their respective populations Nelson pays more, in other words, a roughly 60-40 split.

As the stadium project demonstrates, aspects of the park are already into the second generation of growth.

Netball was one of the early arrivals at Saxton Field, but over the course of little more than a decade its 13 outdoor courts have failed to keep up with the sport's booming growth. With mounting demand for indoor courts, netball took a lead in driving through the stadium, the most ambitious single sporting development in the city's recent history. It found willing partners in the other court sports and table tennis, which have led semi-nomadic existences around Nelson in recent years, using various community or school halls, gyms and stadiums.

Basketball, for instance: Nelson is a stronghold of the sport, and the Nelson Basketball Association has 1500 members on its database, according to its executive officer, Chris Varcoe. It has to run club events across seven venues over multiple nights each week. Next week it is running a South Island tournament that will be spread across three venues, meaning hassles for the competitors and administrators. For example, each venue needs its own match officials, increasing the pressure on the association's volunteers.

Needless to say, the new Saxton Stadium with five basketball courts and the code guaranteed usage rights four nights a week during the season will be a godsend.

Gains will range from simple things like players being able to watch other teams in action on club nights, to the expectation that Nelson is going to secure a lot more tournament action.

Nelson has secured two tournaments over the past two years, Mr Varcoe says. Dunedin, which also has a five-court facility, has hosted seven.

It's not just the flow-on benefits to Nelson from hosting events with upwards of 30 teams that the basketball association is motivated by; there's the fact that local players won't have to keep stumping up hundreds of dollars to travel to places like Dunedin to compete in tournaments.

All the major codes at Saxton Field hold varying levels of ambition for drawing national attention to their new facilities.

Hockey which has had its water-based turf (costing well over $1m) in place since 2006 received a "very big tick" from national administrators after it unexpectedly found itself hosting the Black Sticks-India friendlies in June, says Nelson Hockey Association president Diane Proudfoot.

Potentially the highest profile will go to cricket, which has high hopes that its new oval will become a key venue for New Zealand Cricket, including for second- and third-tier internationals New Zealand A matches, women's internationals and the like, as well as Central Districts competition.

The cricket facilities have to go through a lengthy assessment process, satisfying officials and players, before they become accepted as part of the sport's first-class circuit, but Nelson Cricket says NZ Cricket isn't hiding its enthusiasm to see Saxton Field take its place alongside other key provincial venues.

With New Zealand co-hosting the 2015 Cricket World Cup, the national body has to line up sufficient high-quality grounds to accommodate competition and practice demands. Saxton Field is firmly on the list of sites it hopes to be able to call on, although Nelson Cricket's Jock Sutherland says that if it comes to pass, Nelsonians should set their hopes on seeing minor fixtures only.

The signs so far are good. The main playing block has impressed, and the setting, too Mr Sutherland says Sky Television has sent its representatives to inspect the venue, and they've been "very impressed".

Sport Tasman has its own ambitions for Saxton Field and the new stadium. Mr Muir sees the trust as the natural body to take the central role, including helping to shepherd the numerous codes involved and keeping them focused on common interests; managing the stadium itself; and helping the codes to chase the big business that national sporting tournaments have become.

He's talked of potential economic spinoffs in the order of $30m from such business, and is working with the likes of the regional tourism and economic development agencies towards achieving the potential.

"As a sports trust, I think we're the perfect agent to assist in going and grabbing those big events," he says.

Whether Sport Tasman can convince the different codes to share its vision has yet to be seen; many of them are quite clearly doing nicely on their own and cherish their independence.

It also faces competition for the stadium management contract, which has recently been tendered by the city council, with a decision expected soon.

Sport Tasman has a more immediate situation to resolve concerning its presence at the park. In June, according to Mr Muir, it signed up to a new two-year lease on its old headquarters in Rutherford St, despite the expectation that it would be shifting to the new Sports House.

It has been trying to figure out a way of making the move without ending up paying rent on two buildings; it has, for example, suggested to the council that the trust provide some kind of services in lieu of rent on the new offices.

"The challenge is to get out of here as soon as practical so we can move in and take a leading role in developing Sports House," Mr Muir says.

When it does, it will have joined the exodus of those who have found in Saxton Field a place that, more than most, has demonstrated that sometimes, Nelson can set aside its squabbles and realise an ambitious vision.

That June Saturday Mr Muir talks of, when the park's full potential was on display, prompted another visitor there to put pen to paper.

After watching the action all around him, Wellington school teacher Hugh Steel felt moved to write to The Nelson Mail: "To watch the best athletes in the colleges of New Zealand competing and then look over my shoulder to see local netballers in action and the New Zealand women's hockey test against India left me with a sense of admiration for those who planned all of what is available at Saxton Field.

"Enjoy what you have, Nelson the rest of New Zealand is envious."

Saxton Stadium will be open to the public for the first time at an open day next Saturday, between 11am and 3pm. The formal opening of the building is expected to be in late October.

- © Fairfax NZ News