Green light for Kingston sport plan
Council backs turf wicket plan with 6-3 vote
KINGBOROUGH Council has endorsed a bold vision to overhaul its sports precinct.
The draft future directions plan for the Kingborough
sports precinct features an aquatic leisure centre, new indoor stadium and a sports-oriented high school around the site of the sports centre.
Mayor Dean Winter last night said the premier sporting, health and wellbeing precinct will be 25 years in the making. “The demand for improved facilities and opportunities is growing exponentially along with our community – we are looking at having well over 40,000 residents in the next few years,” he said.
“This plan captures the aspirations of the key users of the site, as well as key opportunities for health and wellbeing for the whole community in years to come.”
The Kingborough Sports Centre opened in 1979 and the precinct encompasses all of the council’s land and the sporting, recreation and community facilities located around the centre.
THE Tigers turned up in numbers to the Kingborough Council meeting, but in the end even that wasn’t enough.
Tigers football club president Paul Gadomski and about 50 members of the club, some sporting the club’s footy jumper, were in attendance as the council voted on the Kingborough Sports Precinct Future Directions Plan — written by former AFL Tasmania chief executive and now the precincts operations manager Scott Wade — that recommends among other things the creation of a second cricket turf wicket on the previously Australian rulesonly No. 1 Twin Oval. However, despite the turnout, the plan was voted in favour with a 6-3 vote.
The Tigers’ argument is the ground was initially built with a $500,000 grant from the AFL for the top oval to be a football arena only. They believe a pitch would impact the club’s pre-season preparations and stop it from hosting AFL pre-season games in the future, such as the North Melbourne-Sydney game on March 9.
But Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter said it cost the council almost the equivalent of the AFL’s grant per year for the upkeep of the ground, while the Kingborough Knights cricket club only had one turf pitch in the entire district, forcing junior teams to travel as far away as Brighton to play “home” games.
“While they are an important stakeholder at the Kingborough Sports Precinct, the Tigers are no more or less important than any other club,” Cr Winter said.
“Our population is about to hit 40,000 and we have huge demand increases every year.
“In order that we are able to support all of the clubs at the
Kingborough Sports Precinct and across the whole municipality, we have to allocate our limited resources fairly.”
He said it was important to maximise the use of the facility to justify the costs.
“At its core, the report is calling on the 33 user groups of Tasmania’s premier sports precinct to work better together and to share,” he said. “The response from the other clubs to that callout has been excellent and it’s a shame that the Tiger leadership was unable to take a broader view about preventative health in our region.”
Gadomski did not wish to comment after the meeting, but the club has received support from Labor member for Franklin and opposition sports spokesman David O’Byrne, who said a move to turn the top oval into a dual-purpose ground goes against the original proposal agreed to by three tiers of government and the AFL.
“If a decision is made to put in those turf wickets it, in my view, goes back on that agreement and severely restricts the ability of the football club, which has hundreds of young women and men training virtually 12 months of the year, to reach their potential and train without significant restrictions,” Mr O’Byrne said on his Facebook page before last night’s meeting. “I support the Tigers in their efforts to have more consultation around this decision and also support the cricket club and others in finding an alternative, acceptable solution to their challenges.”