Auckland City Council

Auckland City's Parks and Recreation Committee supports the rezoning of 84 - 150 Morrin Road, Mt Wellington to assist the Auckland Netball Association in developing netball courts and club facilities on the site.

The Morrin Road site currently has a business zoning under the District Plan. The committee will recommend a change to the appropriate land activity rule that will permit the area to be developed as a sports park. The Auckland Cricket Association is also interested in this site.

The Auckland Netball Association now leases the 14 courts at Windmill Road Reserve, where the disadvantages include local peoples' objection to the noise of the speaker system, inadequate parking and an inadequate number of courts. The Association estimates that 5,000 people are involved in Saturday netball in winter, 3,000 of them playing at Windmill Road Reserve. If it relocated to the Morrin Road site, the Association would develop 24 courts.

Parks and Recreation Committee chairperson Cr Phil Raffils says the council has recognised the need for extra netball courts in Auckland City, and $965,000 has already been indicated in 2001/2002 in the council's long term financial strategy to develop them.

"The Morrin Road site appears to be ideal for this sort of development, " he said.

The council already faces costs of around $1.3 million for developing the site as an open space reserve. It has been used as a landfill area in the past and presents a liability to the council in its current state.

"At some stage we will be faced with meeting our Resource Management obligations in respect of this contaminated site. Developing the land for reserve purposes gives us an opportunity to address the issue in a positive, constructive way for the benefit of the community."

The committee's recommendations include giving the project priority as a budget item in next year's annual plan.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>