Auckland’s sports fields struggle to meet high demand

An increase in demand for sports grounds is forcing a rethink on how Auckland uses and maintains them, according to a Kaipātiki Local Board member.

Deputy chairperson, Danielle Grant, says that the overuse of Kaipātiki’s eight sports fields is due to longer seasons and an increase in participation among young people year-round.

“We do not have enough access to the sports fields to cope with the increase in the participation that we’re seeing.”

Head of operations for parks and community facilities at Auckland Council Eli Nathan says council has noticed more people using their fields over the past few years, but did not provide statistics.

An Active NZ survey found that the time 5-11 year-olds spent per week playing organised sport rose from 3.3 hours in 2017 to 4.5 hours in 2023.

Meanwhile, the percentage of Auckland secondary school students involved in sport rose from 40 per cent in 2022 to 46 per cent in 2024, according to School Sport New Zealand data.

Glenfield Rugby chairman and juniors’ coach, Alan Linstrom, has been involved in the club since he started playing there as a five-year-old, 45 years ago.

His club’s home ground, Kaipātiki Park, has a congested training schedule, as the park is also used by several other sports.

“On Wednesday nights there’s eight teams training … juniors are all crammed onto one field at the moment.”

Grant calls good relationships between clubs and contractors “absolutely essential”. Linstrom says his club’s relationship with contractors could be better, especially regarding communication.

“I’d like more notification. They cored the field about three days before my sevens tournament last year; this made the playing surface rubbish. I’m not on their scheduling plan,” he says.

He’d also like a direct contact for when the lights aren’t working, or sprinklers turn on during training, rather than going through the Auckland Council helpline.

Nathan acknowledges the pressure on the sports field network, particularly during the crossover between summer and winter codes.

He says he is confident contractors maintain fields effectively and have good relationships with sports clubs.

“Our contractors are skilled operators who carry out specialist work to a high standard across the council’s sports field network.

“The council and our contractors attempt to meet the needs of our sports clubs to ensure all sporting codes can have fair access to our sports fields.”

However, Grant says ground maintenance needs to be smarter. This includes understanding the different types of grass and fertiliser being used and being responsive to the effects of climate change.

LISTEN: Danielle Grant on the things she is looking for in sports field maintenance.

Grant says floodlights are a cost-effective way to spread the use of each field out and allows clubs to save their “premium fields” for gamedays.

Nathan says pressure on sports fields for evening trainings means “more and better lighting of fields is an important area of focus for the council”.

Additional floodlights are being installed at Kaipātiki Park, which Linstrom says is “fantastic”.

“It’s going to give us the opportunity to host more night rugby games … It’ll be good for the club, and it’ll ease congestion on a Saturday morning.”

Grant says Kaipātiki would also benefit from an artificial-turf facility, which most other local board areas have.

“What an artificial does provide is just that resilience in your allocation network to be able to handle the rough weather,” she says.

“[Otherwise], what do we do? Say, ‘Oh no, sorry, clubs, you need to cap your numbers, you can't have as many players registering to play’?”

“We don't want that.”