Kingborough Mayor says government has blown the timelines on building the $70m AFL High Performance Centre

A decision on the location of the Tasmania Devils’ High Performance Centre is so far behind the $70m facility will not be built on schedule according to local councils. Here’s what we know.

Kingborough Mayor Paula Wriedt with an aerial view of an expanded Twin Ovals precinct to accommodate an AFL High Performance Centre. Picture James Bresnehan.

The schedule for building the Tasmania Devils’ $70m High Performance Centre has been blown out of the water by the state government’s failure to announce whether it will be located at Rosny or Kingston.

Kingborough Mayor Paula Wriedt said delivery of the state-of-the-art facility had been seriously compromised by the delay.

She urged the government decide one way or the other so the host council could get on with the job.

“We would have had holes in the ground by now,” Ms Wriedt said.

Rosny Parklands in the Clarence municipality was announced as the site for the intergenerational AFL/AFLW training facility last December, beating a bid from Kingborough Council.

Concept design of proposed AFL High Performance Centre at Rosny. Credit: Populous.

Kingborough was recently asked to reboot its due diligence “just in case” things didn't work out for Clarence.

Ms Wriedt says stalling and indecision had been detrimental to the build, originally due for completion in 2026.

“The time-frames now are just ridiculous,” she said.

“I can understand [Clarence Mayor] Brendan Blomeley’s frustration because they’ve been told nothing and we are the same.

“Both council’s need to know if it’s a yay or nay so we can move on.”

In budget estimates on Thursday, Minister for Sport Nic Street said he wanted the process to “happen as soon as possible”.

“We have been working through designs for both sites so they are ready for development application lodgement basically as soon as we make a call on the site,” Mr Street said.

“While the time-frames are tight, we are confident we can meet the AFL and Devils’ expectations around the development of this facility.”

Ms Wriedt was surprised when the government approached her to revisit Kingborough’s plan to build it at the Twin Ovals, having already won the High Performance Centre of reigning NBL champions, the Tasmania JackJumpers.

Tasmania JackJumpers announce their High Performance Centre at Kingston Sports Complex. Chairman Steve Old, CEO Christine Finnegan, Head Coach Scott Roth, Sports Minister Nic Street, Mayor of Kingborough Paula Wriedt and JackJumpers player Fabijan Krslovic. Picture: Linda Higginson

“A few months ago we were asked by the state government to start consultation with our stakeholders _ in the first instance that was with our tenants, the footy club and the cricket club,” she said.

“My reaction was, well we’re not going to do that without a letter asking us to do that because that was going to look very suspicious.

“I have always maintained that we’re not going to try to poach it, once it was awarded to Rosny, that was that.

“And I didn’t want to be seen doing anything that was overtly poaching it because we lost and you’ve got to be gracious about these things.

“So it was an interesting development, and we have been doing what they have asked.”

Since then, Kingborough has met with both the Tasmania Devils and Department of State Growth.

“They told us that is this is a backup plan because things at Rosny haven’t gone as quickly as they had hoped,” Ms Wriedt said.

“The line they have given us is that in the event the geotech or something else happens and it can’t be built at Rosny.”

Kingborough Mayor Paula Wriedt looks over Twin Ovals plans with Knights cricket club president Jeff Ross, Deputy Mayor Clare Glade-Wright and Michael McGregor, of the Tigers TSL team. Picture James Bresnehan

The geotech to investigate what lies beneath at the Twin Ovals has been done.

“We still don’t know the result because they haven’t told us,” Ms Wriedt said.

“They did it at the same time they did Rosny about three months ago.

“I don’t know how much longer this can drag on without it seriously impacting all of the time-frames they have up to when they want to start using it.

“Somebody needs to start getting it under way by November to try to get anywhere near meeting the requirements they have in terms of meeting the playability of the surface [of the HPC’s two ovals].

“I don’t know how they are going to do that.”

Originally published as Kingborough Mayor says government has blown the timelines on building the $70m AFL High Performance Centre