A different vision

Vision for Horsham Sports Stadium Precinct spokeswomen Di Bell and Sue Exell have responded to Horsham Rural City Council’s adoption of concept designs and a business case ‘on behalf of concerned community group members’. Here is their statement:

Community concerns need to be considered and resolved before final decisions.

The consensus in the community seems to agree with the project control group – we do need a multi-use sport stadium for many sports in need of a compliant ‘indoor playing space’.

While some believe that, as suggested in the stadium brief, it needs to cater for our indoor sports for the next 50 years, many in the community believe that it should also include provision for outdoor sports to be able to share some of the facilities in the future.

There are many questions needing answers, but the key question is: Why hasn’t a potential west site at Horsham College, favoured by so many in the community, been fully investigated to allow for a comprehensive comparison with the Mcbryde Street location?

This is particularly important for many reasons. Initial cost, ongoing costs, daytime activity and shared running costs effect the business case, potential new sporting programs to grow participation, safety of access for traffic and pedestrians, potential traffic congestion and so on.

Our information from all sources has told us the current estimations used for building multi-use stadiums including outdoor courts and parking is $3-million to $4-million per court, so four courts equates to $12-million to $16-million – much less than the $26-million estimation in the report released. Why the difference of $10-million? Are the added costs to build on land subject to flooding and the remodelling of the current basketball stadium?

Cr Mark Radford does state, ‘the existing basketball stadium will remain and be a part of the new facility’, but the report appears to show extensive refurbishment to the existing stadium. What portion of the $26-million is to refurbish the existing stadium?

Other key questions being asked by many in the community are:

• How will the traffic congestion resulting from the closure of Mcbryde Street be addressed?

• How has the ‘school usage’ been calculated in the business case, because it is definitely not the indication noted by our group if the stadium is located at Mcbryde Street?

• Why would ratepayers support $26-million being spent on infrastructure built in a flood zone? How can this be allowed?

• How can costings of $15 to $30 per hour for hire be realistic when large multi-use stadiums in other areas operate at much higher rates than this to cover costs?

• Why are we not addressing the lack of stadium facilities in the west area where the largest number of students are located? Doesn’t the community located in the west – also the growth area – deserve facilities too?

• Why would we increase traffic turning off and onto the already high traffic in Mcpherson Street with the danger of trucks increasing, particularly with B-doubles and road trains being introduced?

• The west already has bike tracks and pedestrian tracks to get to the two large schools, these could also be used if the stadium was located in the west.

• How is a site located in Mcbryde Street going to address the sporting needs for the next 50 years? It doesn’t appear to address the potential demand for indoor netball initially – night and day, rock-up netball, maybe junior and senior, new fast fives – netball has been waiting for a compliant indoor home for more than 30 years, but timetabling seems to be based on ‘current’ usage for sports.

We believe there hasn’t been enough ‘community engagement’ in this project. The initial community consultation was run during the Easter and school holiday period when many were away, and now this report is released two weeks before Christmas-school holidays.

Let’s not repeat the split in our city during the town hall redevelopment.

We need open round-table discussions of all interested community members and sports, sharing information fully and openly, with the council listening to the community.

The community will be the users and the payers and this project has the potential to not only be amazing for our sports, but also for our local economy.

We encourage people to be fully informed about this project before supporting it. Let’s get this right. The right location is critical to increasing participation in both indoor and outdoor sports for the next 50 years.