The plan to build a new sporting precinct in regional New South Wales is a step closer following a decision by Orange City Council.
The Council’s Sport & Recreation Committee chair, Councillor Jason Hamling, said the decision took one of the final steps in the process of re-zoning the site.
“The location where the sporting precinct is proposed to be built is currently rural farm land, It has to be re-zoned before a sports complex could be built,” said Cr Jason Hamling.
“The re-zoning proposal has been on exhibition for community comment. The council has now considered those responses from the community and a report looking at the issues that were raised.
“As usual it’s been valuable to listen to the views of the community. Some of the responses looked at matters such as potential noise and traffic that will come up again in future once we eventually get closer to the design of sporting fields, grandstands and access roads.
“Those matters would be raised for community comment when a Development Application is looked at.
“The site is also on part of the Orange district where naturally-occurring asbestos is found and this was raised in the submissions.
Orange City Council has a lot of experience, probably more than any other council in the state, in managing asbestos in this form. This kind of asbestos can be managed safely when this project goes ahead.”
The next step in the re-zoning process has now happened as the proposal has been sent to the New South Wales Planning Department to be formally gazetted. This is expected to happen in the coming weeks.
“Once the re-zoning is complete, there is money in the current council budget to buy the land, “ said Cr Hamling.
“Council has also allocated funding for building facilities on the land in future budgets within its ten-year financial plan. Government grants will also be sought when the time comes.”
“Because of the large number of young children in Orange, it’s important that the council continues to develop new sporting precincts like this into the future.
“Our largest age demographic is still zero-four years. We’re among the top suburbs in the state for the number of babies being born. All this points to a long-term need for more and bigger sports facilities such as this precinct”.
