Christchurch residents have less than four weeks to provide feedback on whether Christchurch City Council should increase the budget for the Canterbury’s multi-use arena.

The Council is seeking the public’s views before making a decision on whether to proceed with the project, with an escalated cost of up to $150 million.

The council could push ahead and invest the additional money required to get a 30,000-seat covered arena, but that would come at a cost to ratepayers Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel said.

“We could choose to re-evaluate the project and consider reducing the scope, design and other aspects of the arena. However, this could significantly push out the completion date for the arena.”

“We would also need to re-negotiate our cost-sharing agreement with the Crown as its funding commitment has been made based on a number of key design aspects, including a minimum of 22,500 permanent seats. If we significantly reduce the scope, we would need to prepare a new investment case for the Crown to consider. There is no guarantee the Crown would still be willing to invest on that basis.”

“We could choose to halt the project, even though we have already invested $40 million in it. If we did that, Canterbury will not have a suitable venue for large sporting or entertainment events in the long-term.”

“It is the overheated construction market that has driven this project so far over budget. It is disappointing we are in this position, but when we embarked on this project, we never envisaged a scenario that included a global pandemic, a war in Ukraine and the lockdown in China, and the significant impact it would have on commodity prices, supply chains and construction costs.’’

There are no guarantees the All Blacks will play in Christchurch, even if the stadium is built.

In a statement made by the Christchurch City Council last year it said “from All Black tests and Football World Cup qualifiers to big concerts and events, Te Kaha/Canterbury Multi-Use Arena will be able to host them all.”

But Venues Ōtautahi chief executive Caroline Harvie-Teare said the All Blacks won’t commit to any stadiums and it comes down to competition.

“And at the end of the day, there are commercial entities, like all others that make choices around where they’re going to generate the most revenue, there will still be there social delivery around the country as well to make sure that everyone gets to see the national team, but I’m not sure that it’s fitting in the discussion around funding options and how this the shortfall will be addressed.”

Councillor Sara Templeton said “what the community expects of us is to take responsibility for listening to them and for making a decision.”

“We also need to make the decision on that assumption, that we won’t get a meaningful capital injection from others, that the other councils are much smaller than us. And any contribution will be minor compared with what is needed. We definitely need a stadium, but ratepayers’ pockets are not bottomless, and if we spend too much now we will limit our ability to have effective solutions for other issues, shifting the organics processing plant, rebuilding South library or adapting to climate change along our coasts and rivers.”

“And the decision we make in July will be one that the next council will have to wear either as a large rates increase or significant cuts to core roading water community programmes and projects.”

The public consultation on the arena funding will run online through the Council’s Have Your Say page from midday Friday 10 June. People will have until Tuesday 5 July to share their views.

The public feedback will then be analysed and presented to the Council so it can consider the views of the public along with expert advice, financial reports and other relevant information when it decides on its next steps at its meeting on Thursday 14 July.