After going through four state government sports ministers who were ready to sign off on it before they were booted to another portfolio, a new sports and recreation centre has been signed off on for Morriset.
The Myuna Bay centre was controversially closed in March 2019 due to concerns about the ash dam wall from the Eraring Power Station causing contamination. At the time it was agreed by Origin Energy and the NSW Office of Sport that a replacement centre would be built.
The first site agreed to was one owned by Origin at Eraring, but the plan created significant concerns among Eraring residents, particularly those whose properties adjoined the site.
Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper has confirmed after several years of delays and setbacks, the former Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation Centre will be reborn on a new site at Morisset.
“The new site is located off Morisset Park Road and essentially sits between the Morisset Hospital land and Bonnells Bay Public School. While mostly cleared but currently degraded with weeds, it offers a perfect setting for something like a sport and recreation centre with good lake access and amenity,”
“The location is fantastic, it’s close to Morisset, it’s close to the road so access is good. It’s got power, water, sewer and gas nearby so this could be fantastic for constructing the new centre and the state has agreed to my proposal,” said Greg Piper.
“So much of the work that’s needed to do that has been well underway for a while but now we need to start the consultation with the community to see exactly what they would like there.”
“This will be the first new sport and rec centre in this way in nearly 45 years and the government isn’t going to miss the opportunity to revise how they do that just with what will be included and how it will be built and utilised by the community.”
“So in my discussions with the ministers staff and the Office of Sport, they’re very keen to actually go back and revisit that and open the centre up to more of the community and open it up to the public is the terms they’re talking about and that would mean it will have facilities there that are accessible to the entire community and could be made use of by sporting groups and community groups around the area,” he said.
There will be a few months of consultation and Greg Piper hopes plans will be ready to go by the end of the year so construction can begin.
“It really will depend on the time frames for finalising consultation and going to the design phase but there’s a lot of money there that origin have put on the table, some $46 million but the sooner we get on to this I think the happier the community will be,” he said.
Image credit: James Forgacs/2NURFM Newsroom 2019