A group of Christchurch city councillors is urging Labour aligned People’s Choice councillors to reverse their decision on the seating capacity on the multi use stadium.

Last week councillors voted to reduce the capacity of the new stadium, from 30,000 seats to 25,000, to avoid an 88 million dollar budget blowout.

Councillor Sam MacDonald said “the overwhelming feedback I have had in the past week is that our Council isn’t listening, the decision was rushed and the public need to have their say.”

Councillor James Gough said “there is time to fix this, and restore public confidence in what will be a legacy asset for our city.”

The amendment proposed last week by MacDonald and Gough, and supported by Phil Mauger and Aaron Keown and Catherine Chu would have retained the seating capacity, sought additional funding from neighbouring councils and central government. 

MacDonald said the People’s Choice demonstrated at the Finance & Performance on Thursday that they can block vote when it suits them.

“We are calling on Andrew Turner to use his block voting influence for good this time, and publicly back a 30,000 seat arena. The moment Andrew signals his Labour Councillors support, there would be enough Councillor support around the table to fix this short sighted decision.” 

“The ball is in The People’s Choice court, they have the ability to rectify this.”