![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/stadium-once-home-to-rugby-team-left-abandoned-overrun-by-drug-addicts/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/newspress-collage-23919436-1694596300452.jpg&description=TRAGIC DECAY Published : 10:12, 13 Sep 2023 Updated : 10:20, 13 Sep 2023 SHOCKING pictures have revealed the devastating degradation of a once-thriving rural stadium now overrun by drug addicts. Whangārei's Jubilee Park was widely considered one of north New Zealand's top rugby league grounds before it was abandoned in 2011. 6 The old grandstand at Jubilee Park, as seen through a boundary fence on Tarewa Rd Credit: Northern Advocate 6 The site is now overrun with homeless drug addicts and covered in graffiti Credit: Northern Advocate..NZME 6 The facility's change rooms were destroyed by fire in 2016 Credit: Northern Advocate..NZME A vicious fire which tore through its grounds in 2016 sealed its fate as a lost icon. The park is today merely a shell of its former self, used chiefly by homeless drug addicts for shelter. A series of harrowing images taken in 2019 show the shocking extent of its downfall, with unkempt lawns, change-rooms-turned-living-quarters, graffiti, and rotting signs. People who live near the wasteland are desperate for someone to take action, even if that entails bulldozing the decrepit buildings. The principal of a school which occupies the stadium grounds told the NZ Herald : "Anything would be better than what it is now, even if we don't get to use it. "It's just disgraceful and it's a bad image for anyone in Whangārei driving past." Though the field was abandoned in 2011, schools continued to use it for sporting events until a fire destroyed the stadium's change rooms in 2016. Former Whangārei resident Donald Blackmore, who grew up playing rugby league at Jubilee Park, told Daily Mail Australia he still visited the site every year. He said: "Every time you drive into Whangārei, there was and has always been a big fence around the park, but last year part of the fence was down. "So I decided to stop to take photos from a distance. It was then I realised how much the park was in disarray. So the following day I decided to enter the park from the){kind=link}
SHOCKING pictures have revealed the devastating degradation of a once-thriving rural stadium now overrun by drug addicts.
Whangārei’s Jubilee Park was widely considered one of north New Zealand’s top rugby league grounds before it was abandoned in 2011.
A vicious fire which tore through its grounds in 2016 sealed its fate as a lost icon.
The park is today merely a shell of its former self, used chiefly by homeless drug addicts for shelter.
A series of harrowing images taken in 2019 show the shocking extent of its downfall, with unkempt lawns, change-rooms-turned-living-quarters, graffiti, and rotting signs.