Carrington Park to get sports hub

The Carterton Sports and Recreation Trust, formerly the Howard Booth Park Sports Trust, will build a multi-purpose sports complex at Carrington Park in the town. PHOTO/FILE

Carrington Park has been selected as the preferred location for Carterton's proposed new multi-million dollar sports and recreation hub.

The Carterton Sports and Recreation Trust, formerly the Howard Booth Park Sports Trust, is proposing to build a multi-purpose sports complex and had been considering possible sites including Clareville, Howard Booth Park and Carrington Park.

Trust spokesman Mike Osborne said the Carrington Park venue would accommodate a variety of local sporting, recreational and community organisations and provide an economic stimulus to the CBD.

"Location is paramount to the success of sports and recreation hubs and siting Carterton's facility so close to the town's CBD will have benefits for everyone," he said. "It will drive activity into the town centre much the same way the Events Centre has done. It will also give sports and recreational clubs the chance to work together and collaborate to streamline club management in one location.

"We think that the Carrington Park concept will prevent the decline of sports participation which is widespread around the world by creating a central sporting complex with high-quality facilities that involve all of our sporting and community organisations in one location," Mr Osborne said.

"This will enable sporting and community organisations to work together, allowing people and families to participate in a wide range of activities at the same place at the same time."

Although costing had not been completed, the ballpark figure was expected to be somewhere in the vicinity of about $3 million to $4 million.

Now that a preferred location has been chosen, the trust will put in a formal proposal to council to use the park. There would be a public consultation period after council received the proposal, Mr Osborne said.

"We think this is an exciting opportunity for Carterton but we want to ensure that the community has as much say as possible on the development of the concept to a full working project."

A provisional site plan and an artist's impression of the main clubrooms have been commissioned.

Plans produced to date were only high-level concepts to give people an idea of what the facility might look like, and the end design was likely to be substantially different, Mr Osborne said. The project is looking for funding through clubs, donations and grants.