The Mayor of Clarence has welcomed the results of an elector poll that found a majority of residents support building an AFL high-performance centre within the Rosny Parklands.
The poll asked two questions, with the first receiving 51.39% ‘yes’ votes in favour of building the centre entirely within Rosny Parklands and the second receiving 35.17% ‘yes’ votes for building it across both Rosny Parklands and Charles Hand Park.
“It’s fantastic to see that the community have spoken,” Mayor Brendan Blomeley said on Saturday.
“The elector poll has won its course and what the community have said is that they want the high performance centre to be situated in the Rosny Golf Course site and that’s something that we’re now determined to push forward and deliver.”
Blomeley said 63% of the community participated in the democratic process, with the majority backing the $70 million state government facility.
“The people have spoken and now it’s time to respect the vote,” he said.
“It’s time to move forward together as a united community to deliver the high performance centre here in the City of Clarence and ensure that we’re ready to enter the national competition later this decade.”
The next step is to work with the Department of State Growth to finalise a Heads of Agreement and determine how they will proceed from a development perspective, he said.
“We’re very keen to get that process started,” Blomeley said. “Clearly the VFL, VFLW teams are meant to be in the competition by 2026, so time is of the essence and we’re very keen to work very closely with the state government.”
He said keeping the facility away from Charles Hand Park on the other side of Rosny Hill Road has “always been” his view.
“It should never have been in the mix … and interestingly it’s also Terry Polglase’s view (from the Save Rosny Parks group). On the 15th of January he stood up in the council meeting and said take the parklands, don’t take Charles Hand Park. And on that side we’re both on the same page,” Blomeley said.
“That’s been my long held view and it’s fantastic to see the community back in that position.”
“We’ve had a $200,000 elector poll. We’ve had a public meeting back on the 15th of May. People have had an opportunity to ventilate their respective views on this.”
“There are passionate views but that should never dissent into some of the public discourse that we’ve seen in recent times which has unnecessarily divided our community, caused confusion and caused angst.”
Save Rosny Parks spokesperson Terry Polglase said the poll confirms the facility has no ‘social licence’ and is calling for it to be moved to Kingston.
