Keep Our Assets Canterbury Welcomes Rethink On White Elephant Rugby Stadium Proposal

Keep Our Assets Canterbury welcomes the report in today’s Press that the Crusaders and Canterbury Rugby Union “would happily return to the old AMI Stadium if repaired”.

This would eliminate the need for the biggest white elephant of the Christchurch rebuild – the proposed new rugby stadium, which Christchurch can’t afford, which nobody wants, and which would be a millstone around the neck of future generations.

To use the Government’s favourite phrase – it’s a nice to have. But not a need to have.

Fixing Lancaster Park (the old AMI Stadium) would remove more than $250m from the Christchurch City Council’s capital expenditure programme, including $110m of borrowing, and help bring the grandiose spending plans closer to projected income.

The next step is for Council to take advantage of the Prime Minister’s statements contained in the same report that “I don’t think we’re going to say, well on a piece of paper you said you’d do this, and be belligerent about it”.

The Government has already demonstrated that the Cost Sharing Agreement can be changed by refusing to pay for 60% of the horizontal rebuild costs and capping its contribution.

It is time the Cost Sharing Agreement was reviewed in its totality.

At the moment, the plan favoured by some Councillors is to get Christchurch “back on our feet”, by bringing us to our knees through a massive privatisation process.

This is clearly unacceptable to a majority of Christchurch residents who want our contribution capped at a level we can afford without selling assets.

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