Clarence City Council is extremely disappointed that after nearly a year of heightened community debate and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, the decision has been made by the State Government not to build the AFL/AFLW High Performance Centre in our municipality.
Throughout this process it was continually stated publicly, as was told to council, that Rosny was the preferred site for the High Performance Centre.
Council was told Rosny was the only site that satisfied the AFL’s selection criteria, including that the HPC needed to be close to a population centre and transport corridors.
If these criteria were negotiable, other sites in the Clarence municipality which were dismissed by the State and AFL representatives could have been further explored.
If there was any doubt about the viability of the Rosny sites this should have been communicated to council at the earliest opportunity to inform our decision making – particularly in relation to the elector poll which cost Clarence ratepayers nearly $150,000.
Instead, we received inadequate communication from senior members within the Department of State Growth. No concerns regarding cost or timing of the delivery of the project were ever raised with council.
Council participated in the site selection process in good faith and went to significant lengths to ensure we could satisfy the extensive criteria put forward by the AFL and the State Government.
Council set clear non-negotiables, including that the project must work with our proposed City Heart Plan, that ratepayer money would not be used for the capital works directly related to the development and that adequate time be given for public consultation.
Council was also clear that we would not sell the land for a dollar, or any other amount – that the land must remain in Council ownership for the community.
Council sought to ensure the final development included significant opportunities for community amenity and that the community’s interests were enshrined in a draft Heads of Agreement that we first presented to Government in February. To date we have not received a formal response to this document.
It is a matter of public record that council members and staff have experienced unacceptable levels of abuse during this process from some members of the community, in part, because of the information vacuum that has surrounded this project, through no fault of council.
It is a matter of deep regret that the division this project has created could have been entirely avoided.
While we acknowledge that some in the Clarence community will celebrate this decision, it is a matter of fact that this municipality will now miss out on many millions of dollars of economic stimulus and a once-in-a-generation opportunity.