The Mayor of Lower Hutt City, David Ogden, and the Hutt City Council continually seek uses for the old Hutt Park raceway; in fact we have probably had a number of administrations seeking to utilise this valuable piece of land down at Seaview.
Of course if previous administrations hadn't run the old Wellington Harness Racing Club into the ground rather than investing city money into the complex, and failing to maintain the existing buildings on site, there wouldn't be a problem and there wouldn't be an issue, would there?
I won't pretend that I know all the ins and outs about the old raceway, but I do know that the WHRC accused the Hutt City Council of financially ruining the club by reclassifying their status from a sports club to a profit making business, and as a consequence their rates quadrupled and their enterprise was no longer feasible.
Everybody knew that the halcyon days of the club which saw the world champion pacer, Cardigan Bay,the world's first harness racing millionaire, racing at the Park in the 1960's were long gone; in fact horse racing in general, including the galloping code at Trentham, was no longer supported by the public as in earlier years. But things have their cycles - horse racing is on the up and up now, fans are returning, young people have became interested, and sponsors are putting more and more money into the racing game. Harness racing in Auckland and Christchurch is booming - and Wellington has been squeezed right out!
And the Wellington area doesn't have a harness racing track anymore and the WHRC hasn't raced on grass at Trentham for a number of seasons. Everybody misses out because of a shortsighted Hutt City Council. The complex is wasted and nobody really wants to be based there - perhaps because they don't trust an amateurish council.
No comments:
Post a Comment