After taking the better part of the last three years, Queenstown now has a world-class skate park, one that the town can actually be proud of. I briefly highlight the park in this week's edition of The Queenstown.com Weekly. Also mentioned is Coronet's 200+ snow machines and $30 million base building that currently sit idle, our thoughts go out to not only the visitors that have come to enjoy the snow, but to the mountain employees that are currently out of work. We also take a look at the latest word to come from not only the Otago Regional Council regarding Dunedin's new stadium, but also the local council here in Queenstown after the launching of the new Inner Links traffic strategy.

Although not 100% finished, Queenstown's plaza-styled skate park opened to the public on Saturday. The park has a truly urban feel and definitely ranks highly as one of New Zealand's best skate parks, one that the town can be proud of. No longer does Queenstown need to sit in the shadow of the skate parks that grace the neighbouring areas, those being Arrowtown, Glenorchy, Wanaka, and Cromwell. All that needs to be done now is the completion of park designer Jason Parkes' favourite feature, the triple leveled skate bowl. The bowl will feature one metre of vert at the deep end and will greatly enhance Queenstown's chances of stealing the "Bowl-A-Rama" event from Wellington, the first leg on the World Cup Skateboarding (WCS) competition series.

After all the hype that accompanied the early season snow fall, Coronet Peak is now closed until further notice as the multi-million dollars worth of investment sit idle. Our thoughts go out not only the ski season visitors, but to the mountain employees that are currently out of work after after the rain and warm weather severely caned the snow pack. It reached 17 degrees in Queenstown yesterday, the highest June temperature since the 1st of June, 2004. At these temperatures, snowmaking is being severely hindered as well as the ability to keep the current snowpack. For the record, Coronet opened on the 11th of June in 2007, and on the 15th of June in 2006.

David Crow's Queenstown weather forecast that was issued this morning, heralds no changes in store on the weather front, with no rain or snow likely due this week, with warmer temperatures continuing again on Friday. This comes after the warnings of a La Nina induced dry spell that he issued in last week's copy of The Mirror. Mr Crow said that La Nina had also been responsible for the dry and warmer than average temperatures seen in Queenstown during January, 3.4 degrees above normal.

Another topic that is likely to heat up is the news from the Otago Regional Council to agree to partial funding of Dunedin's planned Awatea St Stadium. Last Thursday, the ORC voted to recommend a revenue sharing policy as payback for funding provided by the ORC to complete the stadium. The Otago Regional Council contribution will be capped at a maximum of $37.5 million, of which a 3.5% discount will be applied to Queenstown, based on our distance from Dunedin. This attracted fire from Wellington-based outdoor-events firm CapitalC. Manager Phil Sprey said that he had not been contacted at all regarding bringing his events to the stadium, and that it would be highly unlikely that his company would use the stadium for his companies events. Maybe that's because everyone knows that his company made an estimated loss of $750,000 on the Rock to Wellington event, which he then tried to blame on Easter trading laws.

And lastly comes the plans launched by QLDC last week, which they have titled "Inner Links". This is an ambitious project to manage the perceived growth in traffic in the Queenstown region, and comes complete with a range of options to better manage Queenstown traffic. Some of the measures look extreme and if implemented, would take years to complete. The entire plan has been based on continued growth in the Queenstown region, and with Queenstown still currently growing, parts of the plan seem both practical and valid. But given the prominence of Queenstown's current buzzword - 'sustainability', does encouraging more vehicle use really fit into that theme?

Nathan - Queenstown.com Editor.