Scrutiny over Liverpool City Council sale of Hammondville Park land to Moorebank Sports Club

Liverpool’s deputy mayor has called for the community to stop being “held to ransom” over a new aquatic centre, following concerns the council had fallen foul of the corruption watchdog’s guidelines.

Artist impression of the proposed new Hammondville pools at Hammondville Park.

A southwest Sydney deputy mayor has called for the community to stop being “held to ransom” over a new aquatic centre, following concerns the council had fallen foul of the corruption watchdog’s guidelines.

Liverpool City Council resolved at its most recent meeting to proceed with the $8m sale of two parcels of land at Hammondville Park to Moorebank Sports Club for a future sporting precinct.

The $50m plan includes a new aquatic and leisure centre, upgrades to existing sporting facilities and a new hybrid football field.

The conditions of the sale include the sports club providing 283 free parking spaces for the community.

In a 23-page report prepared for the council’s audit, risk and improvement committee, professional services firm O’Connor Marsden outlined “opportunities to improve compliance against the Independent Commission Against Corruption recommendations” over the proposed sale.

During the council meeting, acting chief executive officer Jason Breton said while there were “dotted Is and crossed Ts”, the committee report found there was a “deviance from the ICAC guidelines to the extent that we could have done it better”.

An artist’s impression of the proposed new Hammondville pools at Hammondville Park.

Mr Breton said the “major concern” was that the council had been operating off a single quote, which was “remedied by seeking an independent valuation”.

“That gave me, as acting CEO, surety that the dots and crossed Ts on the next occasion will be met and that there was nothing we can do more about the commercial deal to make it any better,” he said.

Mr Breton said the committee had also recommended the council “rewrite your policy, adopt the ICAC guidelines next time and that you are satisfied that you have got best value for money for council”.

The acting council boss said the committee was concerned about the direct negotiations between the council and the sports club, which he admitted, “even in hindsight”, was “the only credible applicant” to purchase the land.

Moorebank precinct featuring a new indoor aquatic centre and upgraded sporting facilities at Hammondville Park.

“The issue was that when the offer was made and negotiations were conducted between the purchaser and council, that the rationale and discrete detail around direct negotiation wasn’t recorded well enough,” he said.

“But there has been no allegation of any impropriety or otherwise in relation to those negotiations, only that we could have done it better and been more aligned to the ICAC guidelines that cover direct negotiations.”

Deputy mayor Fiona Macnaught told the meeting she was “surprised at the imputation that ARIC had not been satisfied by this entire process” and called for no further delays in delivering the aquatic centre.

“The community wants this to happen,” she said.

“Let’s stop holding them to ransom and get it done.

“We’ve done everything we needed to do and we are going to look at our processes as we should always do to make sure that we can be the best that we can be.”

Mayor Ned Mannoun said the land sale had been in discussion for more than 10 years and said the decision to sell was “a straightforward one”.

“This is how you fund infrastructure, you sell old stuff and you build new stuff,” he said.

“So, if you want upgraded facilities, you have to make decisions that you may view as tough.”

A Liverpool City Council spokesman said the report was commissioned into the Hammondville sale “as an abundance of caution” and that it had “identified some shortcomings”.

“These issues were addressed, allowing the report to council authorising the sale as best value for ratepayers.”

The spokesman said the sale follows an “exhaustive community consultation that strongly supported the sale”, which has been subject to numerous council reports and “dates as far back as a decade”.