The Central Coast has a shortage of sports fields now and it’s only going to get worse.
Council’s Open Space Strategy identified that sport needed an extra 54.66ha of land in 2021 and that will increase to an extra 140.59ha needed by 2031 because the population is increasing.
Different parts of the coast have different deficits: (see screenshot from council’s strategy).
The Operational plan for this coming financial year tells us that the new sporting fields at Colongra have been allocated some money.
But Council is also adopting a sports allocation policy at this coming council meeting, on Tuesday, May 27.
It’s to put some rules in place for allocating the sports fields.
“As community demand for sport and recreation activities grow, Council faces challenges to accommodate the diverse offerings and needs of sporting groups and the wider community,” the report states.
“Council recognises that the limited availability of sporting grounds, coupled with high demand and the preservation of playing fields can limit participation in sporting activities.
“This Policy enables Council to establish a fair, consistent, and transparent process for allocating sporting grounds to sporting clubs, associations and providers.”
The two reports include;
1/ # the policy (which doesn’t say much)
and more importantly how the policy will be implemented in
2/ # the Sportsground Allocation Procedures which covers things like hierarchy of use; Applicant Eligibility Criteria; your History of Financial Responsibility among other things……:P to p135 and click on the links.
