Umamiblog

One of things I really love about living in Wellington is the indoor sports centre on the waterfront. Two things are truly great about the sports centre; the building itself is really accessible and the network of organisers, players, referees, etc, is actually quite an organised network of people.

It will be a big loss to city workers if we lose the indoor sports facilities with the general redevelopment and focus on Wellington’s waterfront. If you care about it, you have until 5pm, Friday the 10th of August to let the Council know your views.

Here is my submission below, do feel free to plagiarise from it if you need! WellUrban has a great article on this as well.

There are many reasons that make Wellington a great place to live and work. A lot of the factors that created this environment we enjoy, funnily enough, are not the result of careful planning or human action.

Thanks to our geography we have numerous fault lines and gorgeous scenery, but also narrow corridors of population and a compact city centre. This means we enjoy the best public transport as well as the most walkable and vibrant CBD in New Zealand.

Wellington’s indoor sports centre is really a continuation of this story. Thanks to our densely packed city, we have a centrally located facility the use of which would be the envy of cities the world over. It’s location on the waterfront so close to our CBD means it is accessible to a huge percentage of our CBD workers.

The eco-system that surrounds the sports centre is organised and holds huge intangible benefits to the people who compete there as well as the workplaces and teams they come together from.

This eco-system could be sustained by the use of the ground floor of Site 10 for an indoor sports stadium, an ideal location that would be just as convenient to inner city workers as the current site. The benefits for a society that is steadily becoming fatter, disconnected and less healthy really shouldn’t be understated.

If the sports centre were to go it would be a loss to workers and the sports people of Wellington, but it will also be a loss to our city’s teams and workplaces. Wellington’s indoor sports is a major asset for us and we should work to ensure it survives.

Remember you have until 5pm tomorrow!