News Archive

An impression of how the proposed $30.7M regional events centre might look.

National Research Bureau, an independent market research company, will be randomly contacting 1000 Northlanders over nine days on behalf of the Northland Regional Council.

The $30,000-plus survey is due to be completed on Sunday, 20 March. Regional Councillors will be guided by the response as to whether they should put forward a draft budget to raise a loan for the project.

As proposed, the Regional Council would foot roughly three-quarters of the bill - $23.6M - for the 20,000 capacity events centre/stadium.

This would see NRC ratepayers with properties more than 50 kilometres from the stadium paying approximately $24 extra in their annual rates bill over 10 years, those within 50km $48 a year over the same period and all commercial property owners within the Whangarei District an extra $96 annually.

The events centre proposal is being overseen by a Steering Committee set up in June last year and whose members include representatives of the Regional Council, Northland’s three District Councils and regional sports body Sport Northland.

Regional Council Chief Executive Officer Warren MacLennan says the survey will see 400 people from each of the Whangarei and Far North Districts contacted about the proposal, together with another 200 from the Kaipara District.

“We have a responsibility to gain feedback from residents on proposals of this kind. The best way to do this is to interview a representative cross-section of people, and to have this done by an independent organisation to ensure impartiality.”

Mr MacLennan says members of the region’s three District Councils have all been briefed on the events centre proposal and have agreed in principle to the investigation process.

The Regional Council expects to know the outcome of the survey by mid-April.