Indoor sports venues hit hard by flood damage

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Water up to two metres-high flowed into the badminton hall, leaving sodden walls and warping beyond repair to the sprung flooring of its 11 courts.

“It’s total destruction of the lower ground floor,” chief executive Glenn Cox said. “It seems to have separated from boards and joinery underneath.”

Efforts were being made to dry out the stripped-down frame of the building which caters for 150,000 players a year.

Neighbouring Forrest Hill Tennis Centre has managed to get most of its courts back in play, but has lost its clubrooms, where water reached shoulder height. Chipboard floors were ruined, doors won’t close and a water main burst. The building would need replacing at a cost of $1.2 million, said Tennis Northern chief executive Chris Casey.

“It fried all our lights,” he said. These would cost $100,000-plus to replace. Without floodlights, senior inter-club matches have had to be moved elsewhere and casual evening play halted.

The small Becroft Tennis Club in Becroft Reserve, which like the other two Forrest Hill groups is accessed via Bond Cres, also had its clubrooms badly damaged. Water rose to 1.7m up interior walls, and the surface lifted badly from one of its four courts.

On the other side of the motorway, Eventfinda stadium – the home of Harbour Basketball and Harbour Gymnastics – also requires major work, including the “hugely expensive” replacement of sprung flooring.

Harbour Basketball chief executive John Hunt said every effort was being made to get ready for the upcoming season of what is the region’s most-played secondary school sport.

“The stadium floors will all need to be replaced,” he told the Observer. This would require specially imported timber.

Ahead of what he hoped might be a midyear stadium fix, school gyms would be added to draws to host games involving 200-plus secondary teams, 160 from intermediate schools and 150 from primary schools.

Hunt hoped it might be possible to have a temporary surface laid on two courts to get

Eventfinda partially back in action earlier., Netball North Harbour at Onewa Domain was also flooded, but water inside was shallow. Initially, it was thought a dry-out would do, but chief excecutive Lynette Brady said it had now learned timber flooring on its two indoor courts would require replacement due to damp beneath that could lead to cracking.

The plan was to delay re-laying floors until after winter, perhaps with a sanding mid-season. But carpet removal meant those using the cafe and other downstairs space would be doing so on concrete floors.

Before the arena switches to summer season use by school vollebyball, futsal and social netball, the arena would need repair. This would delay its use and hit rental revenues, said Brady. Netball’s winter season starts in a month and until then it is helping tennis by renting out its dual-marked outdoor courts.

On top of the flood impacts at Forrest Hill, eight tennis courts at Browns Bay cllub were damaged, along with four at Northcote Tennis Club and two at Mairangi Bay Tennis Club. Consequently inter-club players were sometimes having to use a third club’s courts, necessitating more travel time, said Casey.

Badminton, like the other sports, is lining up third party help, securing courts at Massey and AUT universities and several schools.

The flooding highlighted the desperate shortage of facilities in Auckland, said basketball’s Hunt. Aside from Pullman Arena in Papakura and Trusts Arena in Henderson –both shared with netball – Eventfinda was the only other four-court or larger indoor venue available for fast-growing basketball.

Compared with just those three sizable venues in Auckland, the state of Victoria (admittedly with five times the population) boasted 68, he said. “The lack of indoor facilities is appalling.”

Council and government talked about supporting sport, but had not spent enough on its infrastructure, Hunt said.

The three damaged facilities in Forrest Hill are on long-term leases on Auckland Council land. The sports leaders say it will be up to council to determine future risks.

Safety does need assessing, said Badminton North Harbour’s Cox. “The same could be said of the whole Wairau Valley.”

Drain-clearing among issues local board wants answers on

Workshops to explain what Auckland Council will do to deal with issues identified in recent floods are being sought by the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board.

Among topics the board wants council staff to address is the scheduling of cleaning and maintenance of stormwater catchpits.

These are tended to by both Auckland Transport and Healthy Waters, but less frequently than in North Shore City Council days.

The board also wants to hear from Healthy Waters on its plans for managing the floodprone Wairau Creek catchment in Sunnynook and Milford. The building consents team has been asked to address the downstream impacts to properties from housing intensification.

Board member George Wood, who put up a unanimously supported notice of motion calling for the briefings, said the Building Act stated planning consents should be refused if they resulted in a natural hazard. “I don’t see how Auckland Council is continuing to give [some] building consents,” he said.

Although Healthy Waters had put in extra piping in William Souter Ave to a dry pond in Linwood Reserve and at Lyford Reserve draining to Sunnynook Park, too little capacity lay downstream. “A number of people have been impacted badly in that area.”

Wood questioned the adequacy of piping around Sunnynook Bus Station and the motorway. As recently as March 2022, he pointed out that water had risen to the top of the banks at the Alma Rd bridge in Milford.

Deputy chair Terence Harpur said an immediate focus should be on clearing drains.

Member Mel Powell said conversations were needed about where responsibility lies if homes were deemed uninsurable.

“This is our job to get vocal about this,” said chair Toni van Tonder.

She said council had since the flooding allocated an extra $20 million in its annual budget for extra drain cleaning, but other issues needed following up.