News / Sport
Athletics track saved in final Coburg sports plan
But athletics clubs will have to wait for further upgrades
Mark Phillips
A SYNTHETIC running track will be retained as part of the Coburg North Sports Hub after Merri-bek Council abandoned a proposal to replace it with grass.
But improvements to bring the Harold Stevens Athletics Track up to national elite standards will have to wait following the success of a high-profile public campaign in opposition to the original plan.
The final vision for the precinct near the Coburg lakes will also include upgrades to recreational walking, table tennis, cricket and basketball facilities. Provision for a potential redesign and redevelopment of the Coburg Olympic Swimming Pool has also been included in the final plans.
The draft masterplan first unveiled in April would have seen the standalone athletics centre become part of a multi-sport facility, with a grass track shared with football, soccer and cricket.
This sparked a furious reaction from Coburg Harriers Club and Coburg Little Athletics who both warned the plans would have decimated track and field athletics in Merri-bek.
In a report to the council’s July meeting last week, it was conceded that the “the community’s overwhelming message of anguish is that the synthetic track-based athletics facility simply can’t be removed”.
The Coburg North Sports Hub precinct includes the athletics track, Jackson Reserve cricket and football oval, the Coburg Basketball Stadium, Ray Kibby Table Tennis Centre, and Coburg Olympic Swimming Pool.
The masterplan, which was funded by a $2 million commonwealth government grant, has been developed to accommodate growing pressures on the precinct from competing sports users over the next quarter of a century.
It was prepared over more than 12 months and involved consultation with dozens of stakeholders before it was put out for public comment in April.
But while most of the plan was uncontentious, the proposal to remove the synthetic track and infrastructure for field events, putting in their place a grass facility that would be shared with football and cricket, prompted an immediate backlash.
The 54-year-old Harold Stevens track is home to the Coburg Harriers, formed in 1896 and counting Olympians Raelene Boyle and Herb Elliott among its past members. It also the base for Coburg Little Athletics.
It is estimated between 10,000 and 15,000 people use the facilities at the Harold Stevens Athletics Track, including most schools in Merri-bek.
Losing its synthetic track would have decimated adult and junior athletics in the region, the two clubs warned.
Pascoe Vale MP Anthony Cianflone also opposed the masterplan, raising it in the Victorian Parliament and launched an online petition against it which obtained almost 1700 signatures.
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At the council meeting on July 9, Pentridge ward councillor Natalie Abboud – within whose ward the sports hub falls – acknowleded the original masterplan fell short of the aspirations of the athletics community.
“You were heard and now those changes, and what was initially looking like 25 years down the track a very shared space, is not something that’s on the plan anymore,” she said.
Coburg Little Athletics committee member Jason Clarke, who attended the council meeting, said the club was pleased that the council had listened to the concerns of the athletics community, and urged it to make provision in its four-year budget planning to refurbish the track.
He said the current alignment of the track did not meet national standards which restricted Coburg’s ability to host major regional or state track and field meetings.
“We’re way behind the eight ball in a metropolitan standards context of the quality of the Coburg track and it would be fantastic if we could put a budget in there now the track has been decided to be kept in the short term to be repaired and relaid and if possible realigned,” he said.
“… If there was an opportunity to realign the track so it was compliant with Victorian standards, that would actually increase its hiring capacity so there would be a payback period associated with that.”
But Abboud said that was unlikely to happen in the short-term because the future of the basketball centre was more urgent and already had money allocated to it for a feasibility study into a larger regional basketball stadium at a different location.
“Even though I understand the desire and the importance [of upgrading the track], the problem is we have to have a staged approach and the masterplan has shown us basketball has to take precedence,” she said.
Councillor Sue Bolton said safer access to the sports hub for all modes of transport would need to be included in future planning for the area because there had been numerous near misses with cars as the neighbouring population grew.
Coburg Harriers president David Woods, who was overseas when the council approved the final masterplan, said the club was delighted with the retention of the synthetic track.
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