The Invercargill City Council and Rugby Southland have come to a positive agreement — the council will resume remedial work on stabilising one end of Rugby Park's grandstand.
It comes after Mayor Nobby Clark and council members met with Rugby Southland bosses yesterday to determine the future of Southland's home ground.
"It was a really good, positive meeting," Rugby Southland chairman Murray Brown said.
"I think just sitting around a table and getting both sides of the stories. The council has some challenges around trying to maintain rates and those sorts of things, and Rugby Park is a big asset to support."
It was a week ago when Rugby Southland told 1News it was blindsided by the Invercargill City Council's decision at a meeting last week to pause all repairs and maintenance on the ground to cut costs of almost $3 million.
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But Brown has described the meeting between both parties as positive as a good plan has been made going forward. The union has gained some independent influence, and Rugby Southland staff and council staff have decided to create a working group.
"The two parties will look at what is the best stadia for rugby and as an outdoor facility going forward for the province," Brown said.
While the ground is safe for now, beyond that, the future is unclear.
"There is some work to happen in 2025, and we both agreed that we'd look at deferring that for the future," Brown said.
"I think it's got a wee bit more life cycle than that, and I think it's quite good in terms of the positive nature of the meeting as Rugby South has been given a wee bit more responsibility.
"What can we bring to the table? What are we thinking about for the future? The whole rugby ecosystem globally in New Zealand has got some challenges at the moment. So, possibly spending significant money just to see where that is going for the future, I think, was also probably a wise step," Brown said.
"But from Rugby South's point of view, we still think there's a really good future for the game and the community in New Zealand.
"So, the expectation is we want to keep this stadium rolling, probably get some more activity, maybe some revenue creation around other events because it doesn't get utilised enough, and we might take some ownership of that for the future to support the council and its asset.
"Just shows you what some good communication, by coming together, can get a pretty good outcome — still some challenges, but still we have a pathway going forward that we didn't have a week ago."
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