Re: In response to Jim Bunny's column ‘Naysayer central – kāo!' published on page 2, Friday, May 19, 2023.

Jim's first point is that opponents of the boutique stadium are against change. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who oppose the stadium include those who willingly gave of their free time to change Tauranga for the better by constructing and maintaining the speedway, athletic track, croquet club, tennis club and other venues. These are world class venues. These will be destroyed because of the desire by a die-hard minority to construct a boutique stadium at a huge cost to the ratepayers.

In my opinion Priority One's own business case says the costs of the boutique stadium outweigh the benefits, and that does not even factor in the hundreds of millions of dollars of relocating the affected sporting venues. The revenue streams in the business case are a fantasy and include such assumptions that the boutique stadium will host every home Bay of Plenty NPC game for the first 10 years of its operation.

The second point Jim Bunny makes is that 'it's always the loud complainers – not the quiet majority – that gets heard”. Jim, you and 24% of the population are not the majority. In a recent poll commissioned by Tauranga Ratepayers Alliance 59% of the population oppose the boutique stadium and the relocation of the existing sporting venues. Only 24% of the population support the boutique stadium project.

Jim's third point is to thank God for the Commissioners 'who can see beyond partisan politics and still get stuff, like a People's Stadium done”.

Jim, 30,000 New Zealanders sacrificed their lives in wars so that we can choose who governs us. We are being taxed without representation. Jim, you are saying that the people of Tauranga must pay for what you and a minority want without having a democratic say in the matter. You and the minority don't know what is best for us and the end does not justify the means.

Jim's fourth point is to accuse opponents of the boutique stadium of emotive language. Jim the council has already been warned about their spending by Audit New Zealand in respect of roading and civic centre spending. The boutique stadium project is about $168 million short at this time. Who pays that?

The council has undertaken to pay the cost of relocations which will cost additional hundreds of millions of dollars, which they don't have. It is a reasonable opinion to hold that the relocations will not happen because there is not the finance to do so.

Jim's fifth point is to attack the use of the Domain by current community users based on one visit in winter. Jim, 5000 people use the croquet club each year. The croquet club just hosted its second World Championships. The boutique stadium will never host a World Championship game because it will be too small. We carried out a survey of the use of the athletic track for one week in February and 4712 people used the track during a 70.5-hour period.

I note that no one was paying rugby, soccer, or league during your winter visit. When you were there did you consider where 15,000 people are going to park?

Jim, one last point, if you want a stadium, why not do what we did? Form a group of like-minded people, find a suitable location, raise the finance, construct the stadium, and do it all for free.

Garth Mathieson, Alliance Against the TCC Active Reserve Masterplans representative and Tauranga Millennium Track Trust trustee

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Priority one CEO Nigel Tutt replies: 'The business case uses many methodologies to assess viability; to focus on one of the measures is an attempt to mislead and fails to consider other points in the business case. For example, the case also outlined $778m in economic benefit to our growing region and many non-financial social and cultural benefits. Revenue streams have been assessed by independent professional consultants based on discussions with potential users.

'Unfortunately the poll Mr Mathieson refers to is also an attempt to mislead with the question failing to highlight the many positive attributes a multi-use community stadium at Tauranga Domain would bring for the city.”