"That should get us all thinking – aren’t we lucky in the Waikato to have such a wonderful track at Te Rapa – and I have been stunned recently at the unbelievable talk going around from some people who are promoting closing down Te Rapa, selling off its valuable land and moving to a ‘super track’ at Cambridge.
I am completely against this concept – which interestingly was investigated a few years ago. An expensive, professional report was commissioned and it quite simply did not stack up. From Auckland to Wellington, Te Rapa is our best track without question – so let’s get behind it and support it as an industry. I have long talked about the need for an all-weather track – with Te Rapa’s location to the horse population as well as the public, wouldn’t it be great to see this investment there? Being right in the middle of one of the biggest growing cities in New Zealand – Te Rapa is also ideally positioned to promote racing and get people back on course.
So I say to those people who are talking about selling off Te Rapa and moving out of Hamilton, put your effort into things that need to happen, rather than things that won’t happen."
posted by David Ellis on Sunday 28 May 2017
Hold on a second here - who is talking about selling off Te Rapa?
Surely the only people who have that power are the Board of Directors at the Waikato Racing Club. Who is the Chairman of the Board? What is going on here?
And as for the expensive, professional report referred to, could things have changed since that report? What was the zoning of the land back then? What is the zoning now? How could that impact the value of the land?