Vital that stadium use, revenues, are expanded
I suport diversification of Forsyth Barr Stadium, as suggested by Lee Vandervis (ODT 14.4.26).
At present I suspect its major regular income is from car parking.
I question how many Dunedin residents have been inside the stadium that they pay to own by their rates. I suspect a small proportion.
I would like to proffer that the stadium field and buildings be opened up to a diverse range of uses and sources of income. Starting with the field, this should be available weekly to local sport clubs, similar to the Edgar Centre with netball.
The present turf may not be suitable so solutions to this problem should be investigated, for example, full artificial turf or natural turf with, dare I say it, the roof removed.
I suggest the buildings be made available for uses other than occasional hospitality and functions. As examples, small and large business offices, consultancy rooms, craft businesses, market arcade, lecture theatre, meeting rooms, cafe and restaurant.
I believe the stadium is not suitable for casual and large meetings and public lectures during the week because of no available parking because car parks are leased during the week.
Every ratepayer in Dunedin pays effectively each day for the stadium to exist while it sits empty. The debt repayment and major finance is factored into our rates. Charges for use of the facility should cover only additional cleaning, associated and maintenance, security and minor partitioning required.
To enable easy access, the parking should be made available for stadium users only.
I acknowledge the effects this would have on existing sports and social venues round Dunedin that have diversified the use of their facilities to cover increased costs and in some cases falling memberships. This should be included in a feasibility study.
Support clarified
Saturday's Civis column about the potential successful by-election candidates needs correcting. I was quoted as supporting Conrad Stedman when in fact Conrad is my second choice and Jo Galer is my first choice, as I believe Jo has the best range of skills, experience and ability for the role.
Fares aren’t free
I reply to Katie Hogue-Spurway’s letter (27.3.26) about free bus fares. Nothing is actually free. Bus services are already heavily subsidised by the Otago Regional Council. It will be ratepayers who will bear the cost of any future fare reductions.
With increasing inflation and fuel costs, ratepayers are already covering increased costs even if fares stay the same. Bus patronage will only increase significantly when costs outweigh the convenience of a private vehicle.
The Platform case shows BSA model outdated
The Broadcasting Standards Authority, created in 1989, had its origins in the Broadcasting Act 1976, when we had a state-dominated broadcasting monopoly.
Audiences had nowhere else to go, broadcasters knew it, some form of external oversight made sense. That world no longer exists.
Today’s fragmented audiences move freely across television, radio, streaming, podcasting, online news.
Any broadcaster that consistently offends or misleads its audience will lose it.
The market enforces the discipline the BSA was created to supply.
A broadcaster that alienates its audience doesn’t need to be sanctioned by a government authority. It will simply cease to be viable.
The BSA [in ruling it can hear a complaint about host Sean Plunket on online outlet The Platform: Ed] fails to conduct itself as an apolitical arbiter. Its decisions have reflected a clear ideological lean, making it less a standards body than a soft instrument of censorship.
The proliferation of media formats has meanwhile made its role unworkable. No single authority can sensibly rule on offensive content across the full range of today’s media.
Finally, offence is personal. A single complaint can trigger formal proceedings against a broadcaster whose entire audience had no objection to the content. That standard, applied honestly, would reduce public discourse to silence.
The regulatory structure is nearly 50 years old. The landscape it was designed to govern no longer exists.
Doubting power of Dunedin sun
I own a home in Brisbane that has a 15kW rooftop solar panel system, which is considered large compared with most rooftop systems.
The best daily power the system generated was 116kWh. That was in summer on a very hot day with no cloud cover. Compare that to the worst day of 7kWh when the weather was cool, overcast and raining.
Fortunately, Brisbane has far more of the hot, cloud-free days than overcast ones so the average power generation from the panels over a full year was 65kWh per day. It took about five years for the system to pay for itself, mainly because the size of the system generated a lot of unused power which went back to the grid paying a feed-in tariff of 16c per kWh.
This dropped over the years and is currently 4c per kWh. (A feed-in tariff is what you get paid for excess power your system generates that goes back to the grid.) That same system today would take many more years to pay for itself because of the lower feed-in tariff.
Dunedin does not have a large number of hot, cloud-free days. A recent ad by the EECA in this paper states "panels last over 20 years often paying for themselves in as little as seven, saving households over $1000 a year in power". No mention was made of the size of the system, the cost of the system, where in the country the savings were calculated or on what daily power generation averages the calculations were made.
If you are considering a rooftop solar system I recommend you check the product information very carefully. Published feed-in tariff rates of up to 17c per kWh are only good if you generate a lot of excess power.
I don’t believe Dunedin has the weather to do that and, unless there are a lot more hot, cloud-free days, the savings will never cover the initial cost. If the sun isn’t shining (nightime, winter) and your panels aren’t making power you are using grid power at full cost.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
