Lack of consultation on AFL training centre in Rosny

Save Rosny’s Parks group hopes to get answers on development plans at an open meeting to be held next month, writes Terry Polglase

As a result of a petition conducted by the Save Rosny’s Parks community group where more than 1000 Clarence elector’s signatures were collected, a public meeting will now be held. The suitability of the site and the lack of consultation before the decision was made will be the topics discussed as in-principle support has been given by Clarence Council for the AFL high-performance training centre to be built across our two irreplaceable parks in Rosny.

The Save Rosny’s Parks group is not at all opposed to an AFL team or a high-performance centre being located somewhere in Hobart, or even in Clarence. It also has no opinion on the building of a stadium. It is the gifting of our parklands to the AFL, when so many other options exist, that brought this group together.

The group held a rally with about 350 in attendance on March 3, in Charles Hand Memorial Park and organised a peaceful protest gathering of 150 people in the park on March 18, when the AFL launched the naming of the team. It also collected the signatures for the petition.

The lack of community consultation over the decision to site the AFL high-performance centre in both of Rosny’s cherished parks, the Rosny Parklands (the former golf course) and Charles Hand Memorial

Park (the home of Rosny College) is of great concern. From a hastily organised online survey lasting just four weeks in November 2023, just 317 of 758 Clarence residents supported gifting both parks to the AFL for their high-performance centre. It amounts to just 0.7 per cent of the city’s population of 45,000. The council is now in negotiations with the Department of State Growth over details such as on which side of the highway will the minimum gross ground floor area of approximately 9000sq/m (7000 footprint with a twostorey design) be placed? Where the full-sized MCG dimension fenced oval (approximately 22,000sq/m) and the grassed training area adjacent to main oval of dimension 150m long by 120m wide and preferably ovalshaped will go. The indoor training area/s of at least 1400sq/m and then there is another 2000sq/m required for strength and conditioning, locker rooms, medical, physio, and treatment facilities, football and administrative staff offices and the list goes on with extras such as an area for 150 dedicated car spots.

In Clarence Council’s Media release on October 9, 2023, it is stated that: “No decision to proceed with the proposal will be taken without