Ag 22 july, 2015

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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY

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FULL STORY

Education off the agenda P3

Council, sports clubs lock horns BY SUE NEWMAN

SUE.N@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ

Fox pleased with showing P24

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A work space designed to be the hub of sports administration in Ashburton is standing empty with potential users turning away in droves. Sports House in the EA Networks Centre promised what users wanted – office space that would meet the needs of a wide range of sporting codes, but it’s failed to deliver what they expected. Rather than a space with offices for key tenants and open work space for hot deskers, users have been offered a desk in a large open space. And that, says Mid Canterbury Rugby chief executive Ian Patterson, is totally unworkable. From the outset Mr Patterson said that rugby and two other user groups

asked for partitioned office space and believed this would be provided. To find the workspace was all open plan was disappointing, he said. User groups and the council met on many occasions to discuss how Sports House would be configured but Mr Patterson believes the council has backed down on the original plan to a point where it is a watered down imitation. “We said from the outset that open plan wouldn’t work for us or for Sport Canterbury but it’s been built as open plan office space. We’ve been in discussions with the council about how the situation can be resolved because we’d still like to be in there.” Only Mid Canterbury Netball has set up its headquarters in the open plan workspace while the council

struggles to come up with a way to fill the remaining space to generate income. If key tenants were disappointed, so was the council, said council group manager service delivery Neil McCann, as it believed there was strong demand for office space. It is now looking at options to utilise what is proving to be an expensive, dead area. “The various options that these groups are wanting and what they’re asking for costs money, it could be up to $100,000 to create cubicles and council has decided it will not spend money on this.”

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