A new hockey centre worth $2 million is among the larger of the wish lists presented to the Tauranga City Council during the annual plan submissions process.

The Tauranga Hockey Association has aging facilities, increasing demand and is no longer able to maintain, sustain or grow its operations, says THA president Lynne Whitaker.

But the association is not expecting a hand out from council, says Lynne.

What they want is the same level of support for hockey that the Tauranga City Council gives to other sports in the city.

'Council are actually doing a levels of service review at the moment and out of that review they will be able to see which sports are less equitable I suppose in what they receive from the council,” says Lynne.

'For example, none of the grass field users have to pay for the use of the grass fields, whereas we have to fund all our operational costs through looking after the turf, for the lights, for the water, all that sort of thing.

'Indoor users get all their lights paid for, the nets are set up and they just walk in, walk out – and for that they pay a nominal fee.

'So what we are looking at is we want to have a review of that to make sure there is some understanding of equitability among sports codes and a 30 year plan where instead of having to go to the annual plan or the Ten Year Plan, it's already in there to look at the five yearly cost of replacing the turf.”

The two turfs that the THA is paying all the costs for are saving the city council the upkeep of 15 grass fields for each turf, says Lynne.

'They are acres and acres better off having those two turfs than 30 hockey fields,” says Lynne.

'If we didn't have the two all-weather turfs we would have to have the equivalent of 30 grass turfs to play all our hockey.

'We are not asking for a handout, we are asking for sustainable help in maintaining our facilities – and of course we are about the only sport in the BOP that gets international games on a regular basis so we are maintaining that as well.”

The way the turfs are looking, the Black Sticks' visit to Tauranga in 2010 may be the last.

The turf was assessed by the manufacturer's representative last week, says Lynne.

At the moment it is still fine for international play, but beyond that it will deteriorate quite quickly.

'But they like coming here because of the beaches and stuff,” says Lynne.

The THA represents about 2000 hockey players who pay a $200 membership fee and turf use fees of $6-7 per player per game.

The power bill is $25,000, the water bill $6000, and turf maintenance $16,000.

A player levy for turf replacement has been vacuumed up by increasing operating costs, and the existing turfs are well past their use by dates.

The sand turf is now 18 years old and is almost unplayable. The original life expectancy of 10-12 years has been extended through ‘faithful and diligent' maintenance by volunteers.

The water turf is eight years old and has exceeded its five to seven year design life and needs replacement.

They want a third turf because the association is struggling to meet the demand of its membership for practice and playing time.

The facilities no longer meet international tournament standards, and have also slipped beneath the minimum requirements for allocation for Hockey New Zealand's premium tournaments.

Replacement of the water turf will cost $400,000, the replacement of the sand turf with a multi-purpose/training turf $800,000, and the third turf at tournament standard another $800,000.

The THA is suggesting it shift from a self managed independent body to some sort of partnership model with the Tauranga City Council.

The move would then put hockey in the same category as other sporting codes which have ratepayer support through playing fields for soccer and rugby, courts for netball and indoor facilities for volleyball and other indoor sports.

It would enable the TCC and the THA to pool resources to work together to access capital funding opportunities for the replacement turfs that are required but also to plan future upgrades.

The required capital would come from a range of sources including TCC's city partners, TCC, WBOPDC corporate sponsorship and further contributions from its membership base.