Chadstone Bowls Club says it won’t move to East Malvern RSL sub-branch to make way for $25 million stadium

CHADSTONE Bowls Club is under pressure to move to make way for a $25 million sports stadium – but is still refusing to budge.

Chadstone Bowls Club is against Stonnington Council's proposal to demolish the club to make way for a new sport stadium. Picture: Valeriu Campan

STONNINGTON Council is eyeing East Malvern RSL as a possible space to move Chadstone Bowls Club, freeing up the club’s current Chadstone Rd site for a $25 million sport stadium.

But bowls club president Nigel Maxwell said the RSL was a manifestly inadequate home for the club, which he said had been kept in the dark about the council’s proposal.

“Firstly it’s not big enough. The theory that there’s two bowling greens there is not true. (And) there won’t be any facilities there that we need,” he said.

Mr Maxwell said he had heard nothing about the proposal to move the bowls club to the RSL until he read a Prahran Netball Association (PNA) newsletter earlier this month.

The newsletter, which has been seen by the Leader, says the council has offered to relocate the bowls club to the RSL, which has two bowling greens.

It also says the move would benefit both clubs as they have an overlap in membership.

But the PNA’s Linda Rowland said the council had not been colluding with them and their mention of the RSL in the newsletter had been an “honest mistake”.

“We thought it had been offered, we knew it was an option,” she said.

Ms Rowland said the new stadium would cater for a number of sports, including futsal and basketball, and the community needed to work together to make compromises so that more people could play sport.

“It’s not just about netball, it’s about giving all sports a go,” she said.

The PNA has campaigned for more courts in Stonnington for more than 30 years.

Currently there are just two netball courts in Stonnington, one of which is undersized, to service more than 1000 netballers.

But the bowls club, which Mr Maxwell said has 400 members, is refusing to make way for the new stadium.

Stonnington chief executive Warren Roberts said the council was committed to ensuring the bowls club could continue to play lawn bowls.

“Options for a new facility within Stonnington are being explored as part of the feasibility study,” he said.

“An option that will be explored is the reinstatement of lawn bowls at East Malvern RSL on land now owned by the council.”

The feasibility study is expected to be finalised and presented to the council in October.

East Malvern RSL did not respond to the Leader’s request for comment.