Allianz Stadium patched up by BandAid solutions: minister

ALMOST $50 million has been spent in the past five years to keep Allianz Stadium barely functional, as the sports minister warns the facility cannot continue to be patched up.

Allianz Stadium (right) and the Sydney Cricket Ground from the air.

ALMOST $50 million has been spent in the past five years to keep Allianz Stadium barely functional, as the sports minister warns the facility is on “life support” and cannot continue to be patched up even with hundreds of millions of dollars of “Band-Aid solutions”.

The Saturday Telegraph can reveal $48 million has been invested by the SCG in just five years to keep the stadium operational, yet it is still riddled with safety and accessibility problems.

As the state government faces significant political pressure over its plans to spend more than $2 billion knocking down and rebuilding both Allianz Stadium at Moore Park and ANZ Stadium at Olympic Park, Sports Minister Stuart Ayres said there was no “do-nothing option” on the inner-city sports ground.

ANZ Stadium at Olympic Park is also under the microscope for a major rebuild.

A current stocktake of Allianz Stadium reveals it has just 48 female toilets when it needs 350, 28 wheelchair seats when it needs 404, 139 food and beverage points of sale when it needs 400, a rusting roof, no fire sprinklers, combustible seats, no emergency warning intercom system, no emergency power supply, non-­compliant crowd barriers, and insufficient emergency exits.

This means the stadium is inferior to those in other states including Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia.

“We can’t ignore the advice of experts who say Allianz must change,” Mr Ayres said.

“The stadium is on life support. Band-Aid solutions worth hundreds of millions of dollars won’t work.”

Mr Ayres said the government was “mitigating the risks at Allianz to ensure it is safe”.

“Our capacity to mitigate those risks will run out in 2019,” he said, referencing when the current conditional occupancy certificate runs out.

Labor targeted the government over its stadiums spending in Question Time this week, claiming the Coalition’s own frontbenchers did not back the plan.

The preliminary strategic business case for the stadiums plan led the government to ­believe rebuilding was a better strategy than refurbishing. A final business case is pending.

It was both the government’s ­decision to act on Allianz ­before ANZ, and an increase in the cost that prompted Labor to ­oppose the stadiums plan.

Any government will need to invest money in Allianz if it is to continue to operate. Its conditional occupancy certificate — which outlines mitigation measures to offset safety risks — will run out in 2019.

Yesterday, The Daily Telegraph revealed Western Sydney powerbrokers were lobbying Labor to back the ANZ stadium rebuild. The NRL has also lobbied Labor.