AFL high performance centre: Work under way to prepare Kingston’s Twin Ovals as ‘fallback’ site

Amid uncertainty around the future of the AFL high performance centre development at Rosny, work is happening behind the scenes to prepare Kingston as a back-up site for the $70m facility.

Kingborough Mayor Paula Wriedt, pictured last year, with an aerial view of an expanded Twin Ovals precinct to accommodate an AFL high performance centre. The council was ultimately unsuccessful in its bid to secure the development for the municipality. Picture: James Bresnehan

With Rosny’s proposed AFL high performance centre mired in uncertainty following an elector poll, work is quietly under way to prepare Kingston’s Twin Ovals as a “fallback” option should the state government decide to walk away from its preferred site.

The Kingborough Council unsuccessfully bid to have the $70m facility built in the municipality’s sporting precinct, with the government and the AFL instead opting to establish the home base for the new Tasmania Devils Football Club at Rosny.

But the controversial development continues to spark community backlash in Clarence, with a recent elector poll finding that a slim majority (51 per cent) of residents supported plans to construct the high performance centre entirely within the site of the old Rosny golf course, while 65 per cent rejected the idea of it being built across both that site and Charles Hand Park.

Kingborough Council's vision for Tasmania's AFL high performance centre at the Twin Ovals. Picture: Kingborough Council

At a Kingborough Council meeting on Monday night, Mayor Paula Wriedt said Kingston was the “fallback position” and the State Growth Department had asked the council to begin consulting with user groups at the local sports precinct about the potential for the Twin Ovals to house the development.

She said a “very productive” meeting had been held last week with representatives from the Tasmania Devils, the Kingborough Tigers Football Club, and the Kingborough Knights Cricket Club.

“We were able to provide them with plans of what it would look like up at the Twin Ovals, with two additional ovals, and who would occupy which ovals, how it would work in terms of time frames and so on,” Ms Wriedt said.

“It was a very positive meeting and there were some questions that came out of that and the football club will be providing those answers.”

Kingborough Council CEO Dave Stewart said an email had also been sent to other user groups at the sporting precinct so as to “cast that net to a wider subset of the users” and engage with them about the plans.

Kaspar Deane, a Kingborough councillor, said he believed the government must have “anticipated the [elector] poll wouldn’t turn out well, given they’d asked Kingborough to resume talks with key stakeholders”.

Kingborough councillor Kaspar Deane says the Twin Ovals site at Kingston is the best location for the proposed AFL high performance centre. Picture: Supplied

“Regardless of the poll results, Kingborough’s Twin Ovals is, in my view, still the best option for the facility and is ready to go tomorrow,” he said.

Labor sport spokesman Luke Edmunds said the Liberals should emphatically lock in Rosny as the preferred site and it would be “extremely disappointing if [they] had already made up their mind that they were going to back-pedal to Kingborough”.

“We still have no designs, no planning application, and no clarity from the minister responsible,” he said.

“The last thing we need is another Liberal failure to deliver.”

Under the terms of the deal between the government and the AFL, a development application needs to be lodged with the Clarence City Council by the end of this year and construction needs to be completed by the end of 2025.

Sport Minister Nic Street accused Labor of having “no credibility” when it came to Tasmania’s AFL team and that Rosny Parklands remained the preferred site.

“However, we will continue to undertake work on sites in Kingston so we have comparative due diligence to make the best decision for Tasmanians,” he said.

“Until a final determination on location is made we will continue working with both councils in equal measure.”

Originally published as AFL high performance centre: Work under way to prepare Kingston’s Twin Ovals as ‘fallback’ site