Magazine - Stadium Southland Manager Nigel Skelt Lays Down Challenge

By Editor in General News on 27th Feb 2010 21:05

Stadium Southland manager Nigel Skelt has laid down a challenge to the province's community funders to get international flights into Invercargill.

Mr Skelt said yesterday the city had developed some of the best sporting complexes in the world but they wouldn't get the best use in the future if there continued to be zero international flights in and out of Invercargill. Badminton Southland is staging a bid for Invercargill to become the new high-performance training base for the Oceania Badminton Association.

However, Mr Skelt told The Southland Times yesterday the one black mark against the bid was Oceania board members' concern about getting to and from the city. Invercargill this week hosted the Oceania Festival of Badminton and has had to run buses on a daily basis to Queenstown to get players on international flights.

The Stadium Southland manager believed it was time for the Invercargill Licensing Trust, Community Trust of Southland and local councils to unite and hire a plane to create regular flights to and from Australia. "We've now got an international runway, which has just been finished," he said. "My challenge to the community funders is we need to rent a plane through the ILT, Community Trust and the councils, not just for sport but for everybody.

Source & More: www.stuff.co.nz

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