Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has handed the city's problem child that is North Harbour Stadium to local leadership to figure out a long-term solution.

The city long-term plan, which will be formally adopted in June, will set up a working group led by Local Board chairwomen Anna Atkinson and Alexis Poppelbaum to determine the way forward for the stadium.

Newstalk ZB yesterday asked Brown about the notion of "kicking [the stadium problem] further down the road".

"Well I'm not a great one for kicking things down the road, it's the default mechanism of council and has been for years. But sometimes when you actively do that it's not a bad idea," he told Heather Du Plessis-Allan Drive.

Brown said the council actively consulted with the Auckland public over the stadium's future and the result was a three-way tie between the best options for the council asset.

The mayor had previously described the 25,000-seat stadium as a loss-making “white elephant” and is putting forward two options to redevelop the North Harbour Stadium and Domain precinct in the new 10-year budget.

The first option is to keep the stadium and spend $35 million to maintain and operate it over the next decade while looking at improving its operating model.

The second option is to do away with the main stadium and replace it with one offering up to 8000 seats with additional capacity if needed.

But recently, his thinking changed to focus on involving people closer to the project.

"It occurred to me the women who chair the local boards [would] like to take over and work out a solution themselves. A local solution that may involve them managing and running the thing this year," said Brown.

"So I thought okay we'll give it a crack, if the locals want to solve it then that's exactly who should solve it."

Brown said he was quite happy with the local boards willing to take ownership of decisions around the stadium. He claimed the problem was mainly because not enough people came to watch events there.

He said it could be down to the management of the stadium, or the design and state of its infrastructure.

"If the locals feel it's the right thing to do, the locals can have a crack at it. And we'll see what happens."

Upper Harbour Local Board chairwoman Anna Atkinson told ZB Plus the council's decision was a great outcome and gave local leadership the opportunity to explore the best options for all involved.

"Finally, we - the North Shore residents - can take some leadership over our stadium to ensure its future is a well-used and well-loved facility," she said.

Addressing the council's consultation with the public over what to do with the stadium, Atkinson believes aspects were unclear to those participating. She said wording around demolition and deconstruction were buried deep within the consultation document, which may have misled people.

Most submitters in the area wanted to keep the stadium and change operational management.

"Our local board feedback was clear, we didn’t support any demolition or sale of land and we wanted the stadium to stay, to enhance it and to get it working again to be the vibrant hub it can and should be," said Atkinson.

"The local board have shared the community’s dismay over many years as the stadium was looking more and more run down with less and less use of the main stadium."

Atkinson also noted the turf fields around the stadium are still well used by sport groups.

At the council's marathon yesterday, councillors voted on the long-term plan, which confirmed decisions around what would be done with the council's airport shares, as well as ongoing projects like the Eastern Busway.

On the airport shares, councillors agreed to Brown's proposal to put the shares into a growth fund that could be expected to return 7.5% to 8%. Brown told ZB that getting his proposal over the line was held up by his fellow councillors.

"The public we consulted on this were all very keen to put the airport shares into a growth fund, but some of my councillors were just kind of emotionally attached to them," he said.

He also confirmed that the final work on the Eastern Busway Project would be cancelled, prioritising instead the work needed to complete the Northwestern Rapid Transit line.

Brown was asked how Auckland Minister, Simeon Brown would react to this news - given the busway was in his electorate of Pakuranga.

"Yeah, but that's quite long down the track and he's got years to find some more cash," Brown said.

"We're finishing the stage of the busway that we're doing now, and that's gonna take two or three years anyhow, so it's just kicking the next one down the track. But I think [Simeon Brown] will be okay with it."