Deputy Mayor denies lack of centre progress

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 9

Deputy Mayor denies lack of centre progress

Allegations of a lack of progress by the committee responsible for the establishment of the national sports training centre have been disputed by the Deputy Mayor of Christchurch, MiRex Lester.

In a press release issued yesterday Mr Lester said that the committee had always been aware of the need to proceed with caution to ensure that all training requirements were covered, Ministerial conditions adhered to, and that all legal requirements for the formation of a trust company were met. Mr Lester said that the Justice Department had only this week granted approval for the committee to proceed towards registering the incorporated society and company — acting on an application that had been before it for about three or four months.

In the meantime, plan-

ning had continued to the point where architects had been instructed to proceed with working drawings for stage one of the development.

The Justice Department’s approval had been necessary so that realistic approaches could be made to the business community throughout New Zealand for support, Mr Lester said.

“The establishment committee is extremely confident of the centre being developed as always intended. While recent publicity can be interpreted by some as being detrimental to the objective, today’s announcement has already produced a $5OOO donation from one interested supporter,” the statement said.

Mr Lester .said last evening that he Whs not sure of the cash balance of the centre’s account but he confirmed that $20,000 of the

more than $30,000 already raised was from Adidas and that some of this depended on the sale of T-shirts. The committee would continue with its progressive appeal to business houses, Mr Lester said. This was a slow process because it involved selling particular features, such as individual rooms, naming rights or the right to use the centre as part of a marketing programme, and approaches had to be made to firms one at a time, he said.

No applications for funds had been made to other boards of trustees or charitable bodies, he said.

Mr Lester said he would not be making any submis-' sions to Mr Highet reassuring him of the progress of the committee as he had already met with officers of his department several weeks ago and put his case then.