The Green Island Rugby Football Club is asking the Dunedin City Council to help get new lights for its training field at Miller Park that more than 550 players use at night.
The council says maintaining the lights is not its responsibility but will consider the club’s submission to the nine-year plan.
Green Island club president Brendon Hollows said the club was worried the low light from the outdated 40-year-old lights was causing injuries to players — especially the 300 registered junior players at the club.
"There’s parts of the field that you can’t see at all at night time.
"We’ve got teams trying to train there and between juniors and seniors you can’t see the person a little bit away from you."
The lack of light had resulted in a few collisions and some short-term injuries.
About 10 home games for club teams also had to be relocated to the opposition’s home grounds because the low light conditions made the ground unplayable.
This resulted in a loss of revenue for the club through its sales at the club rooms during post-match events.
There was added frustration that other fields around Dunedin had received upgrades recently.
Mr Hollows said other sports grounds around Dunedin had received upgrades to their lights recently but did not have anywhere near the activity that Miller Park had.
The club would pay for the lights itself if it could but at a cost of $180,000 to replace them, it needed support from the council.
"They support us and we need to be able to train and play here."
The lights would need to be replaced this summer ahead of next year’s season so the work does not interfere with this season.
The club was making do by hiring temporary lights every Thursday night at the moment.
"It’s something we know we need to do, otherwise we can’t carry on training.
"We’re also under health and safety regulations so we can’t not do whatever we can possibly do to mitigate risk."
Junior club chairman Nick Moore said the council was saying it was not concerned about the safety of the players by not coming to the party.
"They’re passing the buck."
Council parks and recreation acting group manager Heath Ellis said the existing lights at Miller Park were owned by the club so it was responsible for maintaining them.
There was no budget allocated to replace the "non-DCC lights" at present.
However, the club had made a submission to the council’s nine-year plan, which councillors would consider alongside other submissions.
He said Miller Park was one of 54 sports grounds the council maintained around the city and they all had competing needs.
