North Sydney: plan to use carparks, bowling greens, playgrounds as hockey pitches

Hockey players say there is a need to get “inventive” to address rising participation in the sport and a lack of facilities for games to be staged on Sydney’s north shore.

A dire shortage of suitable hockey facilities has prompted a plan for carparks, playgrounds and disused bowling greens to be used for training sessions.

North shore hockey players say there is a need to get “inventive” to address rising participation in the sport and a lack of facilities for games to be staged.

North Sydney Council, in a report this week, has identified “repurposing under-utilised carparks”, playgrounds and disused bowling greens such as the former Waverton bowlo into a synthetic surface as a short term measures to ease the “demand and supply crisis” of facilities.

The council said the options could offer a stopgap until a long-term goal of creating a new synthetic playing field was achieved.

Christine Cannon – president of Mosman Hockey Club which has long-lobbied for new training facilities – said new training grounds were desperately needed to address the continued popularity of the sport.

Christine Cannon (right in Pink) said participation in hockey is on the rise.

“We’ve looked at the Waverton Bowling Green and we could run little junior programs on them, but playgrounds are difficult because they’re not accessible – they may be good for training but not for competition size,” she said.

“The roofs of carparks could be converted and would have to have nets. Again, it’s not ideal because most are privately owned.

Waverton Bowling Club could be used as an interim hockey field.

“Ideally we would love an artificial hybrid surface we could train on even when it’s raining and be able to share with other sports such as soccer.”

Mark Hewitt-Park, a founding member of the club, said the absence of suitable playing facilities meant the club’s 400-plus players are currently having to trek as far as Pennant Hills, Ryde and Ku-ring-gai for training sessions along with Sydney Olympic Park for club home games.

“Competition hockey and grade hockey is played on synthetic surfaces and in the entire north shore shore area there are only three pitches and the demand is hot,” he said.

“North Sydney has one of the lowest ratios of recreation space per population for just about any local government area in Sydney – and that means the grounds they have are already at peak use.

“It’s a real struggle and because there are so many codes (using playing fields) the training times are really late – the seniors for example start at 8pm.

“A lot of families are having to make a rationalisation to not do a sport that involves having to travel as far as Pennant Hills on a weeknight.”

The push for a new synthetic pitch in North Sydney is not the first time the idea has been mooted after a previous council proposal for a pitch at Anderson Park was scrapped due to staunch community opposition in 2017.

There have been similar outcomes elsewhere on the north shore with Ku-ring-gai Council last year backtracking on plans to convert Barra Brui sportsground at St Ives into a synthetic playing field following resident backlash.

Primrose Park has been named a possible site for a synthetic playing field.

Lane Cove Council faced similar rebuke over its masterplan for Bob Campbell Oval in Greenwich which would have been converted into a synthetic pitch until public feedback thwarted the plan earlier this year.

North Sydney Council said it would expect “similar negative reaction from residents” if it progressed plans for a new synthetic pitch. Primrose Park has been named by the council as one possible site.

Mr Hewitt-Park said the public perception of synthetic playing fields was a major hurdle to finding a long-term outcome.

“Allowing synthetic surfaces is the ideal solution but it’s a challenge,” he said. “I can understand where the nimbyism comes from – it’s the hottest potato of issues.

“We’ve had plenty of proposals and in a metropolitan city like Sydney some hard decisions need to be made.”

A photo of hockey played in Primrose Park in the 1970s

North Sydney Council figures show local fields currently host community games on an “ad hoc” basis averaging about 25 hours per week during the winter season.

Di Brown, president of Northern Sydney and Beaches Hockey Association which incorporates 14 clubs, has supported the council’s interim proposals.

“You have to make the sport accessible and the only way to do that is to make it local,” she said.

“If there is a site in North Sydney where it could be built on brown site such as a carpark that would be fantastic, and if bowling clubs are no longer in use by bowlers why not keep them community space?

“There hasn’t been a new hockey facility built in the north shore region for 30 years and for us the most important thing is to have the space.”

Studies show hockey was played in North Sydney as early as 1927 with a number of teams based in the area including the Cremorne-North Sydney Club.

The sport boomed in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s when the North Sydney District Hockey Club ranked as a dominant club in Sydney with games often attracting large crowds of locals.

The club was based at Primrose Park until it merged with Gordon Hockey Club in 1991, relocating players to the Ku-ring-gai Hockey Centre on the upper north shore.