News release

3 October 2017

Ngāti Toa Domain upgrade a boost for sports

A major upgrade of sports facilities at Ngāti Toa Domain will be a huge boost for Porirua’s young sports players.

Over the next few months, sports field no. 3 is being revamped by the Council to create two full-sized senior winter sports grounds, where currently there’s just one.

As well, the cricket nets and run-ups alongside the field are being upgraded and a new junior grass wicket, and a senior artificial wicket that can be used in all weathers, are being created.

“There’s huge demand from sports clubs for fields to train on in Porirua and this will help ease some of that pressure,” says Julian Emeny, Council Parks Operations Manager.

“Our intention is to have the work done by December so it can be used for the remainder of the summer sports season.”

Dual posts for rugby and football will be installed so the new fields can be used by both sports.

As part of the project, the Council is looking at installing lighting towers for evening training on field no. 3.

“We still have to go through a consent process but our goal is to have them up for next winter’s sports season,” says Mr Emeny.

While the field and cricket facilities are closed, junior cricket practices have shifted to Endeavour Park in Whitby and the Saturday games to Kura and Onepoto parks in Titahi Bay.

The clubs that use the grounds, Porirua City Junior Cricket and Paremata Plimmerton Rugby Football, are thrilled to see work underway.

Cricket Club Chairman Kevin Findlay says they are looking forward to using the upgraded nets and facilities. “It’s going to be massive for us and cricket in Porirua.”

Rugby Club Chairman Dave Ives says it will help ease the problems they face each season trying to find enough space for the teams to train.

“For us to have two more fields over the no.3 is absolutely fantastic. It will give us another really good quality field. It’s going to make a massive difference for us.”

He’s hopeful the lights will go ahead because that will further ease the pressure by allowing trainings to run later at night on full-sized fields. Last season temporary lights were installed on field no.3 to allow night-time training to help meet that demand and at times evening training has been done using car headlights to illuminate the fields.

“This is well needed. We cater for a lot of kids, with 529 playing for our club every Saturday last season.”

He praised the work done by the Council’s sportsfields team to keep the grounds open for training and games through a wet winter.

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