Trafalgar Park Upgrade

A hive of workers has this week been sealing, hammering and smoothing down the finishing touches to a $7.4 million overhaul of Trafalgar Park.

The city ground, previously described as an "embarrassment", and once compared with "the sort of fading sportsground that might be encountered while exploring the backstreets of a small country town", now ranks as one of the best provincial sports and outdoor events venues in the country, according to city council community projects manager Andrew Petheram.

Nelsonians will now get the chance to make up their own minds.

Nelson now has a venue well able to accommodate not only international rugby, but football, league and marching events. Areas of the park have also been revamped to make it easier for organisers to stage outdoor concerts, Mr Petheram says.

The catalyst for change was Nelson securing a slice of next year's Rugby World Cup action, and $1.5m in government funds towards the upgrade followed. The city council's $5.9m share of the total cost was spent mostly on local contractors, council senior project manager Shane Davies says.

"It's the thing I'm most proud of. We could have packaged this as one big project and handed it to an outside contractor, but it was split into 11 different contracts.

"Other than the turf construction, everything has been done by local people," Mr Davies says.

The turf is a special "sand carpet" built on a base of 2800 tonnes of crushed recycled glass, through which a 16-kilometre network of underground stormwater drains is threaded.

Grass was then sown into the base, and is now a vivid green winter carpet, nursed especially for today's kickoff.

"One of the challenges with the grass was that we needed it in winter, which is actually the worst time for grass, but it's lucky it's just got warm enough, and Nelmac staff have been hammering it with fertiliser," Mr Davies said.

He said turf drainage was performing well at the moment, but a couple of patches were a "bit hollow". The Tasman Makos rugby team have done some trial scrummaging, and had given the ground their approval.

Ahead of the park's first outing today, Tasman Rugby Union chief executive Peter Barr, whose offices sit a stone's throw from the park, was glowing about the new facility.

"All of a sudden we're starting to look like a stadium, with eight light towers, a brand new surface, a new media facility almost complete, and new entranceway.

"From an operational point of view, it's going to make things a lot more efficient for us in terms of moving people through."

It also gave the union greater flexibility when scheduling matches.

The $1.8m new lights, whose thick trunks rise from the ground like ancient oak trees, will allow televised night games of top-flight sport.

Mr Davies says it's not yet clear if any of the Rugby World Cup games will be night games, but they were likely to be for broadcasting reasons.

"We wanted broadcast-quality lights for other events – the only difference in requirement from World Cup management was an increase in the lux (illuminance intensity) levels," Mr Davies says.

Media will now have a crow's nest view of action on the field from a modern media centre facing east across the grounds.

The media and broadcast centre has been built between the cluster of grandstands modernised by the previous council, and a new mobile, retractable digital scoreboard will take pride of place at the park, plus other venues like Saxton Field as required, Mr Petheram said.

Mr Barr says he has had "very positive comments" from Sky Television in terms of the media facility, and the Rugby World Cup organisers were very pleased with the way it looks.

A segment of the park's southern end, referred to as the "southern D", has been sidelined and is yet to be sealed in tarmac as the setup area for outdoor concerts. Contracting firm Opus project manager Alastair Wiffen said a 400-amp feed to the area will serve the needs of concert organisers.

Two large entry points to the park have been built. The 10-gate entry called the Trafalgar Gate, off Trafalgar St, also has ticket offices and a security room where police might be based during large events, and a "resolution room" where staff could sort out ticketing problems.

The six-gate entry off Hathaway Tce is known as the Maitai Gate. The beginnings of an "east-west" cycle and walkway through to Rutherford Park, which will eventually link cyclists and walkers to Tahunanui, cross this side of the park entrance.

"One of the objectives of the development was to open up the park so that it related better to the city," Mr Petheram says.

Mr Wiffen said access and exits through the gates had to be designed to provide allowances for mass evacuation of the park in the event of an emergency.

The cracked and crumbling toilet block is now a thing of the past. In its place on the park's southeast corner is a modern timber and concrete structure, which includes a parents' changing room in the men's toilet block.

It wasn't a legal requirement, just a service that needed to be provided, Mr Wiffen says.

Another brand-new toilet block on the opposite side of the park has created a total toilet capacity for a crowd of 5000, Mr Petheram said.

A legacy of how the park once was remains in the steeply staggered old wooden eastern grandstand, behind which is painted a recently uncovered mural painted by Harriet Blount who lived in Nelson in the early 1980s.

Nelson Mail