Tuggeranong is being deprived of sporting facilities and the ACT will pay in health and social costs, according to the executive director of ACTSport, Tony Naar.
He was expressing disappointment yesterday that an indoor sports stadium for Tuggeranong was not in the 1993-94 capital works program, even though it had been in the forward design program the year before. He said Tuggeranong had more sporting teams set to play than there were courts or fields for them to play on.
ACTSport represents 93 sports and 160,000 registered participants. Mr Naar said the demand was there now in Tuggeranong for an indoor stadium. The ACT, which to date had always had excellent sporting facilities, was falling behind. Sporting facilities were not being built hand-in-hand with development in new areas, as it had done in the past.
He compared the deprived Tuggeranong with the northside which was endowed with the Australian Institute of Sport, the Belconnen Community Centre, Natex, the Belconnen Basketball Centre and the Indoor Hockey and Indoor Netball Centres in Lyneham. If Tuggeranong, or indeed the ACT, fell behind now it would never catch up, he said. High quality facilities meant higher participation with its health and social benefits.
He accepted there were other priorities, and it was a matter for the community to decide. However, questioned the provision of a “”drop-in centre” at Tuggeranong which would provide little more than what could be got at home or on the streets compared with a sports centre with its social and health benefits.
Mr Naar said his members bodies with their very broad membership were saying sporting facilities were a very high priority on what people thought the community should provide.
He was disappointed that the ACT was putting a lower priority on sport when councils elsewhere in Australia were giving it higher priority.
He acknowledged that the Minister for Sport, Wayne Berry, had worked hard in Cabinet to get more for sport. However, he cited several follies in recent years.
Ultimately, Tuggeranong would have three sporting complexes (aquatic, an enclosed oval and an indoor stadium with four basketball courts and other facilities). These would all be on separate sites and could not take advantage of shared parking, meeting rooms, administration, canteen, child-minding and maintenance. He despaired that the same mistake might be made in Gungahlin.
ACT-wide, there should be greater use by the community of school sport facilities. At present, there was nothing in it for the schools because revenue went to Consolidated revenue. It was administered centrally. Community bookings could be cancelled at short notice because of school use.
Mr Naar said the only people benefiting were the janitors who got overtime for opening up and staying on site at weekends and at night.
He said the schools should run it, charging at flexible rates according to the nature of the community user and getting the profit to buy better equipment for schools and the community. Schools were part of the community and their assets should not be treated in isolation.
He said also that the Government liked to have “”showcase” sports complexes which cost far more. Sporting organisations wanted a good roof and floor and good equipment. They were not interested in expensive entrances and external walls that looked pretty.
He thought that when a Tuggeranong complex was built sporting organisations should be able to build their own courts off it.
Mr Berry’s office had not phoned back by close of business yesterday by ACT Government sources say Mr Berry himself was disappointed the stadium did not get through Cabinet, but had to be dealt with in light of other capital-works priorities.