Historic Hurlstone Park Bowling Club closes doors after 70 years
THE Hurlstone Park Bowling Club has closed its doors after 70 years. Club licensee Ron Webster, 85, locked up the club he has bowled at for the past 30 years for the last time.
The Express
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THE Hurlstone Park Bowling Club has closed its doors, despite last ditch efforts to save the 70-year-old site.
Club licensee Ron Webster, 85, packed up the last of the balls and memorabilia on Friday, locking up the club he has bowled at for the past 30 years for the last time.
“It’s very sad. This is part of my life,” Mr Webster said.
The problems for the historic club arose in 2015, after the former Canterbury Council found $200,000 worth of renovations were needed to bring the building up to scratch.
The former council refused to renew the club’s five-year lease and in April Canterbury-Bankstown Council supported a decision to demolish the building after finding it too unsafe to operate.
Since then the club has been in talks with Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL about a potential amalgamation.
RSL club CEO Dean Thomas said the club was disappointed that the bowling club would close. It had been keen to put forward an amalgamation proposal and for the valuable community asset to remain operating.
At last week’s council meeting, administrator Richard Colley urged the bowling club to reconsider its “preference to end the club’s operations,” and to amalgamate with the RSL.
This is a comment that deeply offended director of the club Peter Bowden.
“It’s not us that want to get out, it’s council that are forcing us out,” he said. “They’ve put us into a corner at every step.
“There’s no way in the world we would want to leave.”
Mr Bowden said the club would happily pay the $200,000, if the council could assure a longer term lease.
“If council’s fair dinkum about saving the club, then they will give us a five-year lease. “Otherwise who’s to say they won’t kick us out in one year.”
The clubhouse is on Crown land but the club is responsible for its upkeep. Most of the site is zoned public recreation but a small area is R4 residential.
A council spokeswoman said it offered to extend the lease for at least 12 months provided the club funded “important hazardous material and structural rectification works, for which they were responsible for”.
“They chose to close instead,” she said.
The club has 120 members and opened in 1947.
It has been a popular local drinking spot, especially since Hurlstone Park Hotel closed last year.
The council is expected to call for expression of interests to demolish the clubhouse and develop the site.
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