Brisbane Lord Mayor announces $1.9m netball precinct

AFTER years of football fields dominating Brisbane’s sporting landscape the Lord Mayor has insisted the city needs to develop women’s sport as he announced $1.9 million for a netball precinct.

Netball players from Moreton Bay College will benefit from the $1.9m sports fields just minutes from their school. Picture: Ellen-Maree Elliot

AFTER years of football fields dominating Brisbane’s sporting landscape the Lord Mayor has insisted the city needs to develop women’s sport as he announced $1.9 million for a netball precinct.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the cash would fund eight new hard netball courts, lights and change rooms at Wakerley, in Brisbane’s southeast.

“We need to make sure we develop women’s sport,” Cr Quirk said.

“There has been a domination of football fields generally in Brisbane’s history and this is a chance to catch up with some women’s sports facilities as well.

“And of course, more and more women’s sports are moving into what has been a traditionally male domain — we’ve seen a great gold medal team in rugby union.

“So, there’s many sports now where you get multi-use of the facilities.”

Plans for the $1.9m netball precinct at Wakerley. Source: Brisbane City Council.

Cr Ryan Murphy (Doboy) said the netball hub, which would be co-located with a desperately needed new centre for Wynnum Manly and Districts Meals on Wheels, would be well-used.

“We haven’t had a netball club here in the eastern suburbs for some years now, so girls wanting to play netball at a club level have to go out to the Redlands or out to Coorparoo.”

He said the council would “first and foremost” approach the Bayside and Districts Netball Association to see if they wanted to make it their home.

“But there will be a process to lease the facilities. No doubt there’ll be a lot of interest. I would expect that to happen later this year before the building’s occupied.”

Construction is expected to start this year and the Lord Mayor expected it to be almost complete by the end of mid-2019, although some construction might carry over into the next financial year.

The netball precinct is part of the Lord Mayor’s $40m commitment to sports this financial year. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

The netball precinct is part of a $40 million commitment to sports facilities across the city in his latest Budget, handed down on Wednesday.

There also more money for the Moggill District Sports Park and $2 million to begin work on two new sports parks at Windsor and Rocklea, which be built on land purchased from the council’s flood-prone area buyback scheme.

The funding will include a synthetic hockey field at Chermside and a synthetic soccer field at Mitchelton, plus funding for the long-awaited Cannon Hill public golf course.

Cr Quirk said synthetic courts were fairly new to Brisbane but clubs were “more and more” calling for synthetic surfaces.

“They’re not cheap,” he said.

He said the synthetic courts cannot be used in flood prone areas but they did allow play in all weather and were long-lasting.

*An earlier version of this story said the netball courts would be grass. The netball courts will be made with concrete with a surface treatment on top.