Baypark suits rugby: Bob Clarkson

"The people that say Bay Park is not suitable for rugby have lost the plot" says developer Bob Clarkson.

The man who built Baypark Stadium has dismissed as "absolute hogwash" claims that rugby spectators are too far from the action.

Tauranga developer Bob Clarkson, who sold the stadium and carpark to the council for $12 million, was angered by Mayor Stuart Crosby's comments that the city needed a new purpose-built rugby stadium.

"Baypark stadium is adequate, no ifs or buts. I totally disagree that the crowd is too far away. The people that say it is not suitable have lost the plot," he said.

Mr Crosby responded that the Chiefs were not playing at Baypark because of the risk of injury to players from the turf. Because speedway overlapped with the the Super 15 season, it was difficult to keep the turf up to playing standards while it was used as a run-off area for motor sport.

Mr Clarkson said the design had been a balance between the needs of speedway and using the infield for rugby. It ended up with a speedway track that was too big for stock cars but good for saloon and sprint cars.

The reason Tauranga did not get a Rugby World Cup game was because he was only prepared to hand over six of the corporate boxes to tournament organisers, he said.

"I was not going to **** on the tenants of these corporate boxes who rented them for the sole purpose of watching the good games."

Mr Clarkson said the problem was not the stadium but that the Bay did not have a winning rugby team. The Steamers finished last in the 2013 ITM Premiership and have been relegated.

He said there were better and worse stadiums than Baypark.

The only problem with the stadium was that it looked a bit grubby from the dust whipped up from the speedway track.

Mr Clarkson said Tauranga could always do better but the council was lumbered with high debt and one of the advantages of Baypark was that it had plenty of parking and access was reasonable. "If you stick a stadium in The Domain you will find out what parking problems are," he warned.

Mr Crosby said he did not agree with Mr Clarkson. Most of the complaints about Baypark were that the viewing was too far away from games. "It was built as a speedway stadium. It was never built for rugby or field sports," the mayor said.

Mr Crosby said the reason the Chiefs were not coming had nothing to do with the crowd size, it was purely the quality of the turf and the effect of the field being used as a run-off for speedway.

It was not until the year after Baypark Stadium had opened that Mr Clarkson came to the council looking for money to put a playing field in the middle, the mayor said.

It cost tens of thousands of dollars to bring the turf up to standard and it was still not suitable. "We have got to look at what our needs are for the future. We need a premier turf on which to play field sports that can accommodate a crowd of 15,000 to 18,000," Mr Crosby said. "At the moment Tauranga does not have one, and that is a fact."

Mr Crosby said he had received a lot of good feedback since Saturday's story in the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend. A consultancy firm had offered to do some of the preliminary work on the project, which he stressed was only a concept. The study would determine if a purpose-built stadium was feasible.