Support for development
The backer of a proposed motorsport park near Tapawera aims to secure council and community support for its development.
Garry Adcock has finally received resource consent for the NZ Central Motorsports and Adventure Park, three years after his initial application.
A meeting of an incorporated society that has been formed to take the project to the next stage will be held on June 25.
The idea is to offer a place for motorsports such as drag racing, motocross, sealed and off-road track racing, driver training and mountainbiking, as well as adventure sports such as the luge.
The 203-hectare site is at Stanley Brook is 62 kilometres from central Nelson located off the end of Olivers Rd.
Adcock said he'd had meetings with local MPs and councillors from both Nelson and Tasman councils on how they saw the park developing and the best way to do it.
"The logical step will be for it to be included in their long term plans, which will come in draft form early next year. That's what we will aim to do, to have things planned and organised with a structure, to have it in those plans and have the park go ahead," he said.
Work on building the park would not happen until after it was included in the councils' long term plans with some indication of their support, he said.
For those keen to see it happen, the easiest way to show support was for them to join its society, said Adcock.
A board would be formed to work on the project, its funding, finalise what would be built in the first stages and start the engineering planning, he said.
It would need a mix of public and private support, with most of the funding to be raised through clubs and users of the park, he said.
Adcock likens it to Saxton Field, which is a base for athletics, netball, cricket, football and hockey. "For adventure sport and noisy sport, this will be their place. Like the hockey guys raised money for astro turf, clubs will have input into this - it won't all be provided for them."
Rather than being run by one or two clubs, it was intended the park would have community access.
"We're trying to cater for people that want to drive around a paddock and show their learner driver how to use a clutch, the sort of thing that used to happen at the Back Beach that cannot with population growth and rules and regulations and that sort of thing now," said Adcock.
"We have lots of offers from individuals and from business that want to support it and offer to bring a machine up to build a track or something. In the near future we will get a list of interested businesses and groups that are keen to be involved in that way."
Adcock said he was happy to receive the consents sign-off on April 17. "Obviously the wheels of the RMA turn pretty slowly and it's good to finally get across the line."
- © Fairfax NZ News
