On 22/07/2021, the Christchurch City Council voted in favour of reducing the capacity of the new Kōtui Canterbury Multi-Use Arena from 30,000 seats to 25,000 seats. This was a brave decision by the CCC.

Why do the All Blacks need a 30,000 stadium? If rich rugby players and their organisers are true patriots, the number of people they play in front of doesn't matter. They should be happy to perform for no reward as amateurs used to.

This is the People's stadium and if the All Blacks are allowed to play on our sacred soil, it should be at their cost, therefore, there should be no charge to supporters, who reside in our region. The ticket allocation should be issued by an All Blacks lottery, checked against the residential addresses of the lottery applicants.

This would illustrate to our community, their true commitment to our region. If the All Blacks want to earn money, they can do it through their very lucrative merchandising businesses.

Jamie Gough, Sam McDonald, Phil Mauger, Aaron Keown & Catherine Chu all voted in favour of retaining the larger capacity and proposed the council approach other parties in order to secure additional capital.

If these Councillors and any members of the public want to increase the stadium's capacity, a ratepayer's surcharge should be levied onto them, for a generation. This would give them priority rights to any tickets, they want for All Blacks games or events over 25,000 seats.

To hand the design, and management of this project over to the CCC, showed sagacity and proves that Local Authority's are best placed, when it comes to making local decisions.

Christchurch only needs a 25,000 arena as we can only afford it, in these post pandemic times.

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