Napier City Council\u2019s tourism and events lead Kevin Murphy said the park was in a good position and he wasn\u2019t worried about it. <\/p>\n
Council\u2019s tourism and events lead Kevin Murphy says fire legislation and compliance have shifted over the past 20 years. Photos \/ NZME<\/p>\n
\u201cThe park\u2019s facilities were originally constructed to meet all requirements in terms of emergency exits,\u201d Murphy said <\/p>\n
\u201cBut fire legislation and compliance have shifted over the past 20 years and over time, alterations to the facility have been made,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnder current regulations, there are inadequate emergency escape paths if both the Chapman Pavilion grandstand and its lounge are occupied to full capacity.\u201d <\/p>\n
A council spokesperson said the park was always compliant with the required number of exits for the number of occupants on-site and that large events would always have an emergency management plan in place. <\/p>\n
The spokesperson said the park could still hold a capacity crowd of 16,000, but additional temporary exits would need to be installed to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMcLean Park has a capital programme budget of $1 million. However, no decisions have been made on the timing of any upgrades and this would require a business case first,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs outlined in the 2025\/26 Annual Plan consultation, significant capital investment is not likely to begin for another 10-11 years.\u201d <\/p>\n
Murphy said while there were still unanswered questions, McLean Park was a regional stadium that performed well and was unique from others. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have concerts, domestic and national sports. And we are the only region that holds international and domestic cricket on the same park.\u201d <\/p>\n
The annual plan also says the council will upgrade the park over the next 10 to 15 years into a multi-use facility and a traditional stadium when needed. <\/p>\n
In the next 10 years, the plans include new unisex facilities, a new layout for the Latham St carpark and an asphalted area on the Latham St frontage. <\/p>\n
The plan for 11 to 15 years includes a new stage performance area and a walking track around the park\u2019s perimeter. <\/p>\n
There would be minimal investment in the Graeme Lowe stand with an assessment in the mid-2030s, with a potential outcome to demolish it, the plan says. <\/p>\n
If that happens, portable modular seating will be used to replace the stand.<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Napier City Council\u2019s tourism and events lead Kevin Murphy said the park was in a good position and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35677,35675,35678,12509,15441,8231,3544,27308,2070,35676,9611,35479,5971,9812,111,43,139,69,8143,204,61,14638,1533],"class_list":["post-39072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-35677","tag-accommodate","tag-additional","tag-capacity","tag-crowd","tag-event","tag-exits","tag-extra","tag-full","tag-fullcapacity","tag-mclean","tag-napiers","tag-need","tag-needs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-park","tag-temporary","tag-to","tag-wants","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}