Call for action: Princess Park user groups want to be heard

On the field, court and track, the athletes that don the famous colours of these three clubs do not share much in common when it comes to their sporting exploits.

But they do share one crucial similarity — a love for their historic Princess Park home.

So when the floods hit Shepparton in October last year and completely engulfed the riverside precinct and all of its facilities, all three user groups were forced to quickly relocate and watch as their home was destroyed.

While this temporarily tore the three clubs away from each other physically, it brought them together in a way they had never been before.

After years of fighting for better facilities, this disaster served as the flashpoint for the clubs to take their cause public.

They want long overdue action on the Princess Park Multi-Purpose Sports Use Pavilion masterplan that was conceived by Greater Shepparton City Council and has been in the pipeline for more than 10 years.

“We have been working together as a group anyway, we are all users of this area and obviously were all affected by the floods,” Shepparton Swans president Jarrod Sutherland said.

“But even prior to there being flooding, as a group we had already been working tirelessly to get an upgraded facility, that we can all use, over the line.

“All of our groups need better facilities, our rooms are now demolished from the floods and so are the others, but even prior to that they were all pretty ordinary.”

The last time Princess Park amenities received any significant sort of update was for the development of the recreation reserve’s dog park and the oval’s lighting.

And while the community has enjoyed these latest upgrades, Sutherland hoped for council to commit to the next phase.

“There has been a push for a very long time and it’s been part of an ongoing process, there has been a masterplan in place for a while now,” the Swans president said.

“Part of that was the dog park which they have gone ahead and done which is great, another was lighting at the ground which they’ve done and it’s fantastic.

“The next part of that plan was the updated facilities for the user-groups, even before the floods this was floated, so we are hoping to see action on that next phase.”

Prior to October’s destructive floods the facilities at Princess Park lagged behind other recreation precincts in the Goulburn Valley.

Accessibility is lacking, changeroom facilities, especially for women, are sub-par and the netball courts are struggling to compare with other courts in the region.

At the end of 2018, Greater Shepparton City Council released the Princess Park future directions document and landscape plan for feedback.

Although a final plan depended on a period of public consultation and feedback, initial figures had the plan costing between $5.5 million and $7.5 million.

The plan recommended assessing the development of a multipurpose shared clubroom facility, improving change room facilities, improving spectator amenities, expanding Jim McGregor Oval, relocating and replacing the netball courts and the development of a dog park.

Only one of those has been completed.

In the future directions document and landscape plan, ‘develop change room facilities to support participation by females in sporting activities ... change room facilities should be fully integrated with other clubroom facilities to ensure gender equity’ was deemed the highest priority, with an anticipated timeframe for implementation of one to two years.

Another priority action was to ‘relocate and replace the netball court affected by tree root damage, ensuring the new court is fully compliant with Netball Victoria standards’ which was given a medium level priority with an anticipated timeframe for implementation of three to five years.

Yet, as of March 2023 there has been no progress on either.

Netballers have no changeroom facilities within 100m of the playing courts and are forced to change in the women’s toilets in the W.B. Hunter Pavillion, while there is one suitable playing court — down on Netball Victoria’s recommendation of two minimum courts for football and netball leagues.

Greater Shepparton City Council was the organisation which was identified as responsible for leading or implementing those actions.

“All of our facilities are outdated and a new facility would cater for netball as well,” Sutherland said.

“We don’t have any facilities for the girls who are a part of our football and netball club, also in cricket, the women’s side of things are neglected.”

Shepparton United Cricket Club president Steven Tate voiced his dismay with the lack of progress on the masterplan in the past six years.

Tate believes Princess Park is falling behind other Greater Shepparton City Council facilities and is lacking in basic necessities.

He doesn’t want council to sleep on the next phase of the masterplan.

“The frustrating thing is that the council offices are right there (across the road from Princess Park), and we have by far the worst facilities of anywhere in the region,” Tate said.

“You can go to any other ground, any other facility anywhere and at least they have things like handicap access, just the basic necessities and we don’t have that here.

“It’s taken us five to six years to get to where we are with the masterplan, so the major worry for us as user groups is that we will be in this same situation in another five or six years’ time.”

When it comes to the next phase of the masterplan, all three user groups have an idea of what the upgraded clubrooms might look like.

Shepparton Running Club president Chris Nicholson has been at the forefront of recent developments and outlined how far down the track they had gotten with planning before the floods hit.

“In more recent times the masterplan gained a bit of traction, we had an architect come in and map up a new direction for all the clubrooms and that was all costed out,” Nicholson said.

“But obviously that was when the floods hit, so it lost a bit of momentum, so what we are saying now is if council is going to reinvest money back into this area, let’s use the masterplan you have already invested into doing and fix this up properly.”

When it comes to the benefits the proposed plan would have on not only all three clubs, but the community as a whole, Nicholson said the biggest thing would be that the entire precinct would become more accessible.

“It (the precinct) is used extensively throughout the community, from a runners’ club point of view we generally rent our rooms out to schools to help host their cross-country events,” he said.

“We have the All Abilities Cup that brings over 150 competitors, so if we had better facilities we would be able to take more advantage of hosting events here and make it a real asset to the town.

“The proposed masterplan would create a much better environment down here and would bring so much to the proud sporting community that is Shepparton.”

Sutherland agreed with Nicholson’s sentiments on the potential of an upgraded facility and the benefit it would have on the community — with the ability to host top-class events a vital reason behind this renewed push for council action.

“What people don’t always realise is that this is much more than just a sporting precinct, it’s used during the week by a wide range of different groups,” he said.

“So if we had a decent facility, which is what was planned in the masterplan, cricket, runners’ club, football, netball and the community get to use it.

“It is a pretty important thing we think to get going.”

But unfortunately the potential of hosting events at the Princess Park is still on hold following the damage caused by October’s floods.

Shepparton Swans have already lost the race against time to get the ground ready for their round one clash against Mooroopna, after the Goulburn Valley League announced last week the fixture would be moved to the Cats’ home ground.

While Shepparton United Cricket Club was unable to host a home game in any grade this past season and was forced to relocate to Central Park Recreation Reserve.

Sutherland said if the masterplan had been enacted prior to the floods, it could have been a much different story.

“We still would have been impacted, but we definitely would have been better off,” he said.

“You just need to look around the other sporting facilities in the region, let’s use Benalla as an example, they have a facility that goes underwater, but basically you can hose the bottom part out of it and they still have another level which is dry and ready to go again.

“So for us being so close to the river it is a bit confusing how we don’t have clubrooms that are built to sustain the flood level.”

Greater Shepparton City Council provided a comment on the current situation of the proposed masterplan.

It highlighted the need to consider future options following the recent flood event and the impact it caused on the existing facilities.

“In relation to the Princess Park Masterplan, council is currently considering future options given the recent flood event and the impact that it had on Princess Park facilities,” a council spokesperson said.

“Council will continue to work closely with the user groups and understands that it is pertinent that we consider all factors in relation to the future implementation of the masterplan.”

When council was approached by The News in 2021 ― about concerns with the netball change rooms which were a key action of the masterplan ― it highlighted the “priority” to upgrade and construct a new pavilion.

“Council have been working closely with user groups since 2019 to work through detailed design for the facilities precinct as part of the Princess Park Future Directions Plan,” the statement said.

“While the Future Directions Plan outlined a priority to renovate and extend the existing W.B. Hunter Pavilion, further investigations have deemed this not feasible and designs for a new pavilion incorporating new change rooms for all user groups is under way.

“There is currently no budget allocated this financial year for construction of the pavilion, however, council will be actively seeking external funding opportunities to support this priority.”

Since the October floods, Sutherland praised the work of council in supporting all three user groups in their recovery process.

He said taking the masterplan cause public was not a “council bashing exercise”, but rather a measure all three clubs agreed would give them the best chance of creating a Princess Park facility that would guarantee a bright long-term future.

“Our club certainly doesn’t want to use this as a council bashing exercise, we are happy for the effort the council has put in with getting us back up and running from the floods,” he said.

“Council are definitely trying to help us, but we just really want to make sure that they aren’t going to change their mind on going ahead with the masterplan that has already been mapped out.

“But the reason we are here doing what we are doing is that there is a long term issue at play that needs to be addressed.

“Something has got to be done and something has got to be done fairly quickly to ensure the bright future of the Princess Park facility.”