Tokoroa Memorial Sportsground rationalisation

South Waikato District Council has demolished the East Bowling Club building at the Tokoroa Memorial Sportsground to enhance the surrounds and improve the visibility of the sportsground from the State Highway.

"The removal of this building was decided in 2010 as part of the total Tokoroa Sportsground Memorial rationalisation initiative," said Craig Hobbs, Council's Chief Executive.

The more recent decision to proceed with the demolition of the East Bowling Club building if we were unable to find someone willing to move it was made on Thursday 7 July. This was resolved and supported by all Councillors bar one, with Deputy Mayor Jenny Shattock voting against the motion.

The old clubrooms had been disused for a number of years since the Tokoroa East Bowling Club had ceased to operate. The building became Council's asset once the club became defunct. Concerns in the very beginning from Bowling Club sole committee member Donna Quirk was around ensuring that the memorabilia was preserved before the building was either removed or demolished; as she knew it would be at some point. The memorabilia has been removed and is stored safely.

In recent times community organisation Love Soup established there on a temporary basis for a while. Despite what has been mentioned in media circles, the arrangement with Love Soup occupying the clubrooms was never permanent, it was always temporary, a fact supported by Council's intention from 2010 to remove the building and that memorabilia was to be removed.

Council made every effort to find Love Soup a new home, including committing funding, identifying new buildings and supporting grant applications through continued and regular discussions and meetings. Sadly this did not eventuate. Council is fully supportive of all the great work of Love Soup and the service that it provides to those in need in our community and is thrilled to see that Love Soup is now operating from the Salvation Army.

"Council has consistently suffered criticism over the East Bowling Club rooms and Love Soup," said Mayor Sinclair. "Much of what is said on social media especially is simply not true or accurate. It is upsetting to hear such criticism when Council has done everything it possibly could to assist Love Soup."

Several buildings at the Memorial Sportsground are identified for removal. The Announcer's Tower and the old First Aid Room were removed last year, followed by the Highland Pipeband building, then followed by the East Bowling Clubrooms and the old referees A-frame is soon to follow.

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Background and history

• In July of 2013 Donna Quirke (sole member of TEBC) and Julie King met with Mayor Neil Sinclair and Chief Executive Craig Hobbs to discuss the concept of Love Soup and it being housed in the TEBC building. At this meeting it was made clear that the arrangement would only be temporary until such time as Council determined the future plans for all buildings on the Memorial Sports Grounds and a more appropriate location for Love Soup found. Council gave an undertaking to Donna Quirke at this meeting that when the building was removed or demolished in the future, Council would remove and preserve the memorabilia in the building. We have done this.
• The Memorial Sportsground is owned by the Crown through the Department of Conservation. Use of and responsibility for the Memorial Sports Ground is vested in Council by DOC. Under the Reserves Act which Council must comply with, land and buildings on DOC Reserve land must be used mainly for sports and recreation activities. The Love Soup activity in the East Bowling Club contravened this Act and the Love Soup committee were aware of this.
• Love Soup opened in August 2013.
• September 2013 - His Worship the Mayor Neil and Deputy Mayor Jenny Shattock made a $500 Mayoral Fund grant to Love Soup
• 15 October and 6 and 20 November 2013, Mayor Neil and Chief Executive Craig Hobbs had meetings with Donna and Julie regarding the sustainability of Love Soup and other issues. On 6 November a request was made to transfer the lease from TEBC to Love Soup. Again it was discussed that the arrangement at TEBC was temporary and Council would not be entering into any lease arrangement with Love Soup.
• August 2014 - Mayor Neil wrote a letter of support for Love Soup to First Sovereign Trust grant application.
• September 2014 - CE Craig Hobbs was informed that Love Soup was about to paint and do significant upgrades to the TEBC building so Craig reminded Julie, again, both in person and in writing of the temporary nature of the arrangement. More recently, Julie has told Craig that this was the first time she was aware that Council deemed Love Soup's occupation as temporary. This is confusing to Council as the temporary arrangement had always been in place.
• Regarding the rationalisation project at the Memorial Sportsground, Julie has been constantly updated with Council's proposals.
• In the time that Love Soup has been in the TEBC, Council has not charged any lease/rates, staff have supported food licence applications, etc as accommodatingly as possible.
• Council offered to support moving and donating chattels from the TEBC to the council owned ex-midlands league club building on Princess Beatrix drive which would be shared with the Air Training Corp. This was initially supported by Love Soup, but their support for that option was later retracted.
• The East Bowling Club building was not compliant. It did not have a Building Warrant of Fitness. Council had no intention of bringing the building up to BWoF standards at significant expense to ratepayers, as the intention was to either demolish the building or have it removed elsewhere if someone else wished to have it.
• Love Soup subsequently negotiated to purchase some bare land in Tokoroa. Council offered the East Bowling Club building to Love Soup and also identified an amount of money (what it would cost to demolish the building) to assist in the relocation of the building to this land. This offer was reliant on Love Soup gaining a resource consent which required amongst other things, agreement from all neighbours.
• Totally unrelated to Council, the sale and purchase agreement which dragged on for many months, did not eventuate. Council continued to extend its offer of the building and relocation support while this situation played out.
• Council has worked long and hard with Love Soup to find a suitable permanent location, unfortunately the memorial sportsground is not that location given the wider context. Our offer of financial and in kind support has always been strong.
• Council has consistently been surprised and disappointed at the repeated agreements we reach with Love Soup on a way forward and then conflicting dissatisfaction [days] later. "We have simply never stopped looking for solutions," said Mayor Neil, repeatedly.
• "The Mayor, Deputy Mayor and other Councillors, indeed Council as a whole, are extremely supportive of Love Soup," Craig Hobbs.
• Council is and has always been firm and clear on removing the building to open up the entrance way and visibility from the State Highway to the Memorial Sportsground.
• Council reviewed the facilities at the Tokoroa Memorial Sportsground in 2010. The review showed low usage of TEBC. All buildings were reviewed with a focus on sporting activities. There are a number of other venues that can be - and are - hired for social activities. In January 2015 Council unanimously adopted the rationalisation project timeline for the review.
• Community use of the building has increased since Love Soup has been operating out of the venue; as a result of Love Soup hiring the facility out. This was done outside of our agreement for Love Soup to use the rooms for the Love Soup initiative.
• Our intention to remove this building (and others) has been on the cards since the review in 2010; and this temporary arrangement has been discussed with Love Soup for about 18 months.
• Council received no submissions regarding Love Soup or the East Bowling Club rooms during the 2015-25 Long Term Plan consultation process in April and May of 2015. We did receive submissions on this Long Term Plan (and previous Annual Plans) from some in our community expressing concern over old, run down dilapidated buildings and the negative impression they create. We support this sentiment.
• Council support included:
• Agreed for Love Soup to temporarily use the TEBC
• Waived any rental fee
• Provided funding from the Mayoral Fund of $500 paid in September 2013
• Worked on finding new premises, including visiting a number of business options. We found the ATC building.
• Liaised with ATC to share premises.
• Offered to assist with relocation costs to ATC (kitchen etc).

• Offer to gift the East Bowling Club building and assist in the relocation costs to Love Soups proposed bare land site.
• Provided support and advice to Love soup on the Resource Consent process