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Ashburton FIRST PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1879
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Friday, July 12, 2013
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Naylor Love wins stadium bid By Michelle Nelson A multi-million dollar contract to build Ashburton’s Riverside Sports Complex has been let to construction company Naylor Love. The EA Networks Centre will be built on land owned by the Ashburton District Council. Accessed from both River Terrace and Smallbone Drive, it is destined to become the headquarters for several sporting codes. The centre will feature four indoor courts and a four-pool aquatic complex, with provision for expansion. Extensive green fields will come on line for other sporting codes as they opt to move their headquarters to the new centre. Plans include scope for bowling greens, an oval for cricket or hockey and football and rugby fields.
Construction company Naylor Love is to build the Ashburton Riverside Sports Complex. National construction company Naylor Love will receive $25.1 million to build the indoor aquat-
ic and sports facility. The company has a strong background in building aquatic and indoor
sports facilities. Among their recent projects has been construction of the Selwyn Aquatic
Centre in Rolleston, the Dudley Aquatic Centre in Rangiora and currently, Christchurch’s “cardboard Cathedral”. An additional tender for site civil works has been awarded to a local consortium led by Ashburton Contracting Limited for $2.8 million. The work signed off yesterday will bring the full design and construction costs of the facility and associated works to $32.7 million, including the $5 million raised by the Ashburton Stadium Trust. Mayor Angus McKay was pleased construction can now begin on the much anticipated aquatic and sports facility. “This is easily the biggest community facility project this council has ever signed off on and councillors are as excited as the wider community at the prospect of getting the EA Networks Centre built and up and run-
ning,” Mr McKay said. Council members thanked the Ashburton Stadium Complex Trust which has raised the net $5 million target set and to the local community which has got behind the project and supported the fundraising effort. “The achievement of the Stadium Trust team and the local community in meeting what some called a difficult fundraising target is nothing short of outstanding,” Mr McKay said. The Stadium Trust will continue fundraising activities, including the auctioning of a house at the new Braebrook development, built by local tradesmen and suppliers who have donated labour and materials. Proposals were received from the three construction firms. Construction is expected to begin next month with completion currently scheduled for March 2015.
Demand hot for working dogs at annual sale Barking dogs are seldom welcome in town, but they were in hot demand in Tinwald yesterday. The 57th PGG Wrightson annual working dog sale attracted 67 entries, and a sizable crowd of buyers and onlookers. Auctioneer Greg Cook said numbers were up on last year, and the sale achieved a healthy clearance. “Three or four top dogs made $5000, and promising young dogs were in good demand,” he said. “We had dogs here from the North Island and all over the South Island.” Luke Jamison was there to sell his four-year-old huntaway, Pound, who impressed the bidders. The auctioneers hammer went down at $4000, signalling the end of Pound’s life as part of the Double Hills team. “I’ve got heaps of young dogs at home – I bred him and broke him, he’s a good dog, but you can’t keep them all,” Mr Jamison said. Following the sale Mr Jamison handed Pound over to his new owner Sam Bell, and briefed him on working the dog – with a technological twist, using the voice recording device on Mr Bell’s cellphone to record whistles and voice commands. Mr Bell was in the market for an all-round dog with a big bark, for use in the sheep yards, paddock and on the hill, and was satisfied Pound would do the job. “I usually have a young one coming on but I was caught short – I’ve got an old dog at home and one that’s not up to much,” he said. “This one’s got a good bark to shift sheep.” Retired farmer and dog triallist Alistair Dickson had made the trip from Amberley to sell his young heading dog Don. He has bred, trained and sold dogs for many years, is a seasoned competitor at dog trials in both New Zealand and Australia, and still helps out with sheep work on neighbouring farms.
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Sheep dogs sold well at the Tinwald saleyards yesterday. “It’s all I know,” he said. “A good dog is better than a man on a farm. It would cost $50K to employ someone, so it’s also much more cost effective. “These day’s a lot of people don’t have time to break a young dog in – it takes a lot of work, so good working dogs are still in demand.”
Dan Carter
Carter may face Celtic or Rakaia By Jonathan Leask World rugby’s most prolific point scorer could be running around the local rugby scene next year. Dan Carter is rumoured to be considering turning out for Southbridge in several games when he enacts his sabbatical clause in his New Zealand Rugby Union contract next year. That could potentially see the 95 test All Black with 1399 test points to his name running around against Celtic, Hampstead, Methven, Rakaia and Southern, depending on the draw. Carter played his first senior game for Southbridge in 2009 against Hornby getting up for a 34-13 win at a packed-out Denton Park. Those scenes could be repeated week-in week-out at grounds throughout wider Canterbury if Carter confirms his sabbatical will be spent in the blue and white of Southbridge rather than a lucrative offshore club like his stint at Perpignan also in 2009. Carter and his wife, former New Zealand hockey international Honor, recently welcomed their first child Marco James, and he also has his business interests in New Zealand suggesting he may stay in the country for his sabbatical. That leaves his options to be a Richie McCaw like self-exile from rugby or a stint at Southbridge. He was interested in turning out for the club earlier this season when on leave from the Crusaders waiting for the birth of his son but it didn’t pan out. It would be quite the coup for the two-time Combined Country Cup winners with Carter slotting into a backline already containing the fire power of the flying Fijian combo of Peni Manumanuniliwa and Willie McGoon and that already boasts Ellesmere first-fiveeight Shannon Donald. The initial reports in the media suggested that rumours of Carter’s plan were “rife in Mid Canterbury rugby circles” so considering that Southbridge is still firmly planted in Ellesmere and consequently the Ellesmere rugby union, the reports could easily be off the mark as well. Fellow Crusader and ex-All Black lock Tom Donnelly has turned out for Oxford this season but the likes of Carter running around in club rugby would prove a big drawcard at any venue - as the Christchurch club will find out tomorrow when Richie McCaw laces his boots up for the first time in six months playing for Christchurch against DCL Shield holders University in the Christchurch Metro division one competition.
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