THE shortage of indoor venues on the Mornington Peninsula will turn kids away from participating in sports next year, a sporting body has warned.
Southern Peninsula Basketball Association manager Ben White says sporting clubs face the “scary reality” that infrastructure development has fallen behind population growth and the projected growth of indoor sports.
Even with the addition of Rosebud Primary’ School’s new indoor court, White says the numbers mean there still won’t be enough venues to accommodate additional young sports players.
“Through our advocacy, we have been able to secure a $7.8 million funding commitment through Dromana Secondary College from [Liberal candidate for Nepean] Sam Groth and the state Liberals, should they be elected later this year,” White said.
“However, this relies on the Victorian Liberals winning government and, even then, it will only buy our community a couple of years’ reprieve.”
Labor’s sitting MP for Nepean Chris Brayne says election promises are not the answer, and that he is continually working to increase and improve indoor sporting centres as part of a “long term commitment”.
“With the Rosebud Primary School gymnasium complete and open, I’m looking forward to getting on and doing more for our indoor sports,” he said.
“I won’t be doing this as some quick election promise with no chance of actually being delivered, but as part of a long-term commitment to our peninsula’s sports community who for way too long have been ignored by politicians on the peninsula.”
In a recent Mornington Peninsula Shire Council budget meeting, sport and recreation was received as the second largest submission. But White says allocations to indoor centres, or progression to, was “almost non-existent”.
In 2020, the association took part in the council’s Indoor Sport Capacity project, which highlighted the problem. White says there has been no follow up.
“This time next year we will face a situation where we have to tell all the families of children from Mount Martha right through to Portsea that they do not have the option to take up indoor sport, regardless of what sport. We want to be able to at least tell them what we are doing about the problem,” he said.
A finding from the Indoor Sport Capacity project was that the shire had a lack of owned facilities, but White says there could be better use made of shared community venues.
He said the “deterioration” of the council-owned Sorrento Community Centre, where the floors have been unsafe to use now for almost a year, proved that council-owned properties were not always the way to go.
“A prime example of where the council has worked with schools is the facility in Rosebud, opposite Yawa [aquatic centre],” he said.
“This was a joint funded endeavour which is in immaculate condition as it is run by SPBA who live and breathe the sport and take care of the facilities.”
White says his meetings with the state government had so far shown that indoor sport infrastructure is “not on their radar”.
The council also does not have any immediate plans to finance new sports infrastructure, but says it is working on a sports capacity plan.
The council’s team leader of community infrastructure and open space, Mark Stahel, said the council recognised the growth of indoor sports on the peninsula and is in the process of developing a new Sports Capacity Plan – V2. Indoor Sports.
“This will guide future planning for indoor sports and should be completed before the end of this year,” he said.
“Council invests many millions of dollars in sporting infrastructure each year, it makes up a significant portion of our annual capital works program.
“While there are no indoor sporting facilities currently funded in council’s budget, in recent years we have completed construction of the new Somerville Recreation Centre – a four-court multi-use stadium, which cost close to $10 million.”
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 16 August 2022
