Ku‐ring‐gai Council has published the Canoon Road Recreation Area Draft Plan of Management (PoM). The Draft PoM includes night lights for the netball and tennis courts at Canoon Road and will be presented for acceptance at the Ku-ring-gai Council meeting Tuesday 24th November 2015.

The Draft PoM must not be accepted as it does not adequately inform Councillors or the residents of South Turramurra.

A well informed assessment is impossible given the Draft PoM is lacking key information and metrics for expected netball growth. This denies South Turramurra residents visibility of the impact the growth will have on a single access road. How can South Turramurra residents know the impact of night lighting without knowing how many players or how many nights a week netball and tennis will be played. Many of these metrics have been deferred to the operational plan which casts the Draft PoM as a lazy assessment with wilful disregard for the impact on South Turramurra residents.

“Netball Saturday” traffic now on week nights?

All South Turramurra residents are too well aware of the traffic chaos on local roads on “netball Saturdays”. South Turramurra cannot accept hollow “assurances” that only a “few” games will be played on just 2 nights a week. The long term plan is for Canoon Road to be the primary netball complex so all daytime and nighttime capacity will inevitably be consumed so residents have a right to know what are the numbers for growth.

Where are the vulnerable species environment impact assessments?

Similarly the Draft PoM cannot be accepted by Council given the lack of environmental impact assessments for the threatened and “vulnerable” Powerful Owl and Red-crowned Toadlet in the neighbouring Reserve and National Park. Again such a lack of key documentation for threatened and vulnerable species means the Draft PoM cannot be adequately assessed. Does this expose the PoM to legal challenges should it be accepted in its current form? A question for the Council to consider.

South Turramurra to absorb ALL netball growth.

The Draft PoM cannot be accepted because it is not a long term plan for netball expansion and growth. Netball is expecting massive growth in coming years and desperately needs additional capacity. Canoon Road cannot be expected to absorb ALL this growth, it’s time to address the imbalance and give netball access to more sites to meet its growth potential.

Share the netball love, spread games over multiple sites.

The KNA maintain they cannot fragment games across multiple sites due to player development opportunities that come with ultra high density netball facilities such as Canoon Road which may have up to 400-500 person movements each hourly change-over. Other sports manage with multiple sites, why can’t netball? If netball games can spread over weeknights under lights then they can just as easily spread over multiple sites and not require such high density facilities.

It is not satisfactory to give up on identifying additional netball sites and put the easy option and traffic burden on South Turramurra. Play fair.

Broken promises

In 1999 the Council, the KNA and local residents signed an agreement the Canoon Road facility would be downgraded from a regional, to a municipal to local facility within 10 years. Instead we have continued expansion with court lighting on Thursday and Friday nights, with no firm controls to prohibit increased usage. Play fair and honour previous commitments.

Council Mergers

Ku-ring-gai Council does not want to merge with Hornsby Council as Ku-ring-gai residents will carry a disproportionate financial burden. Netball is a high density sport with 20 or more games in play at one time yet South Turramurra is expected to carry the high density impact for Ku-ring-gai, Hornsby and other clubs. Play fair Ku-ring-gai Council and listen to your own sense of injustice.

Act…write submissions to Council and Local Members

Please write submissions to Ku-ring-gai Councillors and your local state and federal members to demand that Council and the KNA (Ku-ring-gai Netball Association) identify additional netball facilities for future netball growth. It is not reasonable for Council to wilfuly impose netball’s high density traffic impact on South Turramurra on weeknights in addition to Saturdays.

Go on, play fair KNA and Ku-ring-gai Council and provide a PoM that provides adequate information and put in place a long term solution for netball growth.