Council and Stadium Trust to work together to rebuild Stadium Southland

Invercargill City Council and the Stadium Southland Trust are to work together to rebuild the Stadium Southland following the recent collapse of the Stadium's roof.

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt and representatives of the Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust are covering all issues regarding the recent collapse of the roof due to an extreme dumping of snow, including looking through all the Council files regarding the building of the stadium.

Mayor Shadbolt said the Trust had elected Chairman Acton Smith to be the spokesperson regarding the stadium's structural engineering issues and Stadium Southland General Manager Nigel Skelt regarding stadium operations, stating "(Mr) Acton has informed us that a thorough, independent structural engineering review by Invercargill engineer Graham Cole will be undertaken during the coming weeks to ascertain the cause of the roof collapse and it will be some time before we know the cause."

Mayor Shadbolt said Council staff informed those attending the meeting that when the stadium construction was completed it was given a code compliance to the building code standard at that time.

"Councilâs focus is on rebuilding the stadium," the Mayor said. "This is the home of our Southern Steel and Southland Sharks and is a much-loved facility in our community."

Stadium Southland users were forced to flee falling debris as the roof of the home of Southland sport collapsed today under heavy âvery wetâ snow.

At the time of the collapse General Manager Skelt told TVNZ "we've never had a snow fall this big before.

"We are really conscious it wasn't during a peak time because the result could have been far more catastrophic. We are just talking about a building here."

The 2,000-seat venue cost about $10 million to build and was opened in 2000.