Members of an anti-AFL High Performance Centre group have successfully secured a public meeting with the Clarence City Council to discuss the project.
The meeting follows the controversial selection of Rosny Parklands as the preferred site of the facility in late December 2023.
The High Performance Centre is a requirement for Tasmania to secure its AFL licence, alongside the proposed multi-purpose stadium at Macquarie Point.
Public opinion remains divided over the location, with some residents seeing the Parklands as a perfect fit and others in opposition to having their open space given away.
The selection may be up in the air however, with the petition against the project receiving over 1,000 signatures and prompting a meeting.
Among other things, the petitioners aim to have a survey regarding potential locations within Clarence for the AFL facility re-sent to all local residents.
“I am literally so excited … I think it will be a really interesting meeting,” Councillor Bree Hunter said at a meeting on Monday night.
“I hope we get people from both sides and we can hear the different perspectives, as well as council [and] their view of the facts.”
A petition in support of the High Performance Centre presented at the last council meeting had nearly triple the signatures, but only 937 of them were from the Clarence area.
The remaining 1,348 signatures came from other Southern Tasmanian areas, 514 from elsewhere in Tasmania and 107 from the mainland.
Councillor Richard James attempted to dismiss the pro-petition during Monday’s meeting, arguing that the high number of signatures from outside Clarence made it more suitable for the House of Assembly.
“It just seems to me that this petition is … casting the net, it’s very wide and is extreme,” he said.
“I think that really from a normal situation, in my opinion, it doesn’t really stand up as a petition that I thought would have come through here (council).”
The public meeting has been proposed for May 15 at 7pm.
