Invercargill Councillors agree funding increase for Stadium Southland

Invercargill City Councillors have committed to $700,000 annual funding for the ILT Stadium Southland for the next three years, an increase of 57% on the previous $400,000 funding agreement.

Agreed at a full meeting of the City Council last week, the rise resulted from the venue’s owners, Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust, having requested the increase to ensure it had funds available for long-term maintenance.

In February, City Councillors recommended that the public be consulted about the request through the annual plan. However, Councillor Nobby Clark put forward a motion for the council to fund the increase without this process.

Councillor Clark advised that the funding was “important to secure the long-term future of this world-class facility. None of this was possible without a dedicated group of councillors who are now more focused on progress as opposed to process.

“We have a commitment to many issues that have been left unattended for far too long.”

Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust Chair Alan Dennis was “thrilled” with the result, commenting “we can now plan maintenance work for the next three years. It was also pleasing for ICC to acknowledge the importance Stadium Southland is to the wider community and the people, events, and money our world-class facility brings to our city.”

The funding request results from the stadium Trustees saying that they are now operating from year to year with little reserves.

The annual cost of maintaining the venue has grown since it was built in 2000.

Outside of the money the stadium generates through hire income and other revenue streams, Dennis explained last month that the Trust needed to pull together about $1.3 million annually to cover the shortfall in its operating costs.

That $1.3 million figure is close to be covered through the following contributors: ILT Foundation ($400,000); Invercargill Licensing Trust ($150,000); Invercargill City Council ($400,000); Community Trust South ($250,000) and Southland District Council ($75,000).

However, those figures do not allow for any money to be put towards maintenance, which was why the Trust has asked the Council to increase its annual funding to $700,000 on an ongoing basis.

ILT Stadium Southland images courtesy of the Southland Indoor Leisure Centre Charitable Trust/Facebook.