West Ulladulla- the wash up after budget

About a fortnight ago I went down to West Ulladulla Sports Park to check out the issues that are going on there.

Issues like car parking and access road are ongoing and super slow- especially since they are costly beasts.

The netball courts have problems especially the splitting and cracking in the surface that makes it hard to play.

The juniors footballers want a big fence to stop the roo’s running through their training sessions, and the drainage fixed up so that wet weather doesn’t keep them of the pitch so long.

AFL made the point that they would like their field finished to a good standard for the next season.

What also came through was that they were feeling a bit left out of the process. Some groups had offered assistance to get jobs done with voluntary labour; others felt they could source materials etc a better deal than council.

So I spent the weekend going over this stuff in my head and put the following motion up to Council.

a) For the 2012/13 Budget, Council allocate $150,000 to the Ulladulla Sports Park;

b) Council seek opportunities to work with the Sports Park Management Committee to maximise the funding available to the park; ie, through in-kind contributions;

c) The Ulladulla Sports Park Group provide input into the priority of projects within the complex;

d) The current master planning exercise that is underway be expedited to assist the user groups and management committee with their decision making

I wanted to make sure we at least secured funding for netball, but at the same time trying to keep the motion flexible enough so that the sporting groups could work together to maximise the funds ( since there seems to be so little to go around sometimes).

The general manager had intercepted me and made sure the funds were put in the budget- so by the time it came to the ordinary meeting we were just talking about structure.

I hope this minor change makes the west Ulladulla sporting fraternity feel a bit more empowered to look after their grounds in the way they see fit and I look forward to some feedback in the not so distant future if it is working out.