Shellharbour council to make it easy for sporting families

During a debate on proposed changes to Shellharbour wet weather policy on sportsfields Cr Rob Petreski floated the idea of a direct link on the council website that took people to the list of ground closures.

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"I know as a parent of four kids Saturday mornings were quite chaotic at times," Cr Petreski said.

"If it's raining and you're not sure if the sportsfields are open or not, you need to go on that website pretty quickly.

"If possible we can have some sort of easily identifiable place, whether one or two clicks away, where we can have residents, sporting participants and clubs able to quickly identify whether it's on or off."

He said it would also benefit clubs visiting from out of the area.

"If there are teams from out of Shellharbour coming in, they're not necessarily going to be aware of the weather we're having and they might not be aware that some of our fields are closed," he said.

"The quicker that information can get out there the less inconvenient it is for our participants."

Council CEO Mike Archer said that matter had been taken on board.

Up for discussion at the meeting were policy changes that would close a loophole that had allowed sporting groups to pay a bond and then use a council oval that had been closed to wet weather.

Another proposed change was to remove the category system of closing ovals and instead assess them on a case-by-case basis.

Cr Jacqui Graf was in favour of the changes.

"It is a different approach to provide more sustainable and equitable access to all users," Cr Graf said.

"And hopefully when wet weather closes grounds there will be less impacts for subsequent users and we''ll be able to maximise the use of our sporting grounds."

Cr Petreski felt it was a "sensible policy".

"What some people don't realise is when we play on fields that are flood affected or wet and soggy the damage to the field goes well beyond that weekend," he said.

"What tends to happen is then the quality of the surface tends to erode quite quickly and it tends to be much harder to revitalise that and rejuvenate that throughout the season."

He added that, with weather variations council staff may need to assess whether a field is also too dry and dusty for use, as opposed to wet.

Councillors voted unanimously to place the proposed wet weather policy on public exhibition for 28 days.

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