HUTT CITY COUNCIL MEDIA ADVISORY

18 April 2018
Final Push for Fraser Park

Members of the public have an opportunity to ‘leave a mark on Fraser Park’ by sponsoring an engraved brick or paver at the new sports centre due to open later this year.

Hutt City Council has invested $9 million into the new $12 million facility, and several local sponsors have also come on board. Now there’s an opportunity for the public to contribute through buying an engraved brick($100) or paver ($800) which will be laid in the paved areas at the facility entranceway.

Many local sports people and clubs have a strong connection to Fraser Park , in some cases covering decades, and even through several generations of some families.

One such family is that of former White-Sox captain and coach, Naomi Shaw who grew up near Fraser Park and has spent more than 55 years playing softball, as well as other sports there.

She says the new sports centre is great news for the city and for the community around it. “The council is doing a great job in bringing such quality facilities into what was once known as a depressed, low socio-economic area. The place has become a thriving hive of positive activity for the central Hutt Valley,” she says.

Fraser Park became a second home for Naomi’s daughter Kiri Shaw, who also captained the New Zealand team and Kiri’s daughter Denva Shaw-Tait, who was a member of the Junior White Sox team in 2017. The family has many happy memories of Fraser Park and Naomi says that the world class facilities and shared club rooms will enable greater collaboration between sports based at Fraser Park and enhance softball’s potential to host a world championship tournament.

When completed, the sports centre will be a regionally and nationally significant precinct for sport, recreation and other community activities including three new softball diamonds, artificial turfs, rugby/football turf and a multi-sport facility.

The sports centre will be home to Fraser Park Sportsville, a collaborative initiative in which sporting groups join together to develop new shared facilities with centralised management.

It aims to create a number of sports villages, or communities, making it easier for sports clubs to attract new members, offer new programmes and control operational costs by sharing resources.

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