Why North Sydney Council wants to target touch players with new fees at sporting grounds

A Sydney council is under fire over plans to charge touch football groups with new fees to repair ‘damage’ on playing surfaces from football boots. Have your say in our poll.

More than 600 touch football players could be impacted by the fee hike.

A leading grassroots touch football club has taken aim at North Sydney Council over plans to introduce a new fee for playing on sporting fields on the north shore.

More than 600 players at the Cammeray Touch Football Club could be impacted after the council’s draft 2023/24 budget revealed a new charge of $45 per hour specifically targeting touch football groups.

The council stated the new user fee was “justified due to the sport’s impact” of playing surfaces such as damage to turf from football boots.

The new user fee would only apply to touch football and not to any other sporting code including soccer, rugby and hockey.

Bianca Park – who has served as the president of Cammeray Touch Football for the last 15 years – has questioned why other codes would not be asked to cough up the same increase.

The fees would apply to sites including Forsyth Park.

“We’ve been a community club for over 30 years and charging us a specific fee with commercial rates is incredibly unfair,” Ms Park said.

“$45 an hour adds up to thousands of dollars each season on top of what we already have to pay for lighting hire, insurance costs have increased, and referee fees are up.

“It doesn’t make sense to say because you’re using football boots you need to pay more. Why aren’t rugby and soccer being singled out as well?

“We have over 600 players and it’s the one sport that men and women of all ages can play together. We now have to fight to keep going. It will be crushing for us.”

The new fee – proposed to come into effect on July 1 – would apply to sites including Anderson Park, Primrose Park, Tunks Park, Waverton Park and Cammeray Touch Football’s home ground of Forsyth Park.

The fee represents a $10 hourly increase on the existing standard $35 hourly rates at each of the sporting facilities. The council’s draft budget shows the $35 standard rate is also proposed to rise to $38 from July 1 in line with CPI.

North Sydney councillor Jilly Gibson has opposed the fee increase.

A council spokeswoman said the money raised through the touch football fee increase “would be used for maintenance such as returfing to return the grounds to use as quickly as possible after the winter season has ended”.

“This higher rate is proposed due to the much higher impact touch football has on the turf surface as compared to other sports,” the spokeswoman said.

North Sydney councillor Jilly Gibson has hit out at the increase – saying all sporting codes should be treated equally.

“We should be encouraging outdoor activity – not making it harder – because sport is a good way to keep physically and mentally active,” she said.

“All football codes should be treated the same – from what I can see touch football has the same impact on playing surfaces as soccer and rugby. You can’t say one code can do more damage than another.”

Ms Park said the proposed fee hike comes after the council restricted Cammeray Touch Football Club’s use of local fields during summer – meaning the club now has to compete with other sports such as rugby for field space in the busy winter season.

“We’re already having our access restricted and the new fees will just make it even more challenging,” she said.

A comparison of councils that also charge hourly rates for sporting fields shows Willoughby Council charges seasonal rates of $43.64 her hour.

In Ryde, the non-commercial hourly rate is up to $30.50 per hour, Inner West Council charges $28.10 per hour for sporting facilities with lights and Parramatta Council charges a seasonal rate of $49.65 per hour for synthetic sporting fields.

North Sydney Council’s proposed fees and charges are currently open for public feedback. The final say on the charges will be determined by councillors at a meeting next month.