By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Silverton Cricket Club has taken the long handle to Greater Dandenong Council for “mushrooming” the club and its home ground’s long-awaited upgrade.
Without a major upgrade for 40 years, WJ Turner Reserve in Dandenong North has been blighted by dilapidated and unsafe facilities.
In the meantime, the reserve has been the subject of four scrapped masterplans by the council.
Most recently, a $100,000 masterplan was abandoned in April, drawing loud protests from the club.
Since then, the club says it was led to believe the council was going to provide “three main and significant upgrades”.
Greater Dandenong however baulked from providing up to four retractable nets for Silverton’s growing player list.
It will instead repair the original 40-year-old pair of potholed, unsafe nets.
“To say we are furious is an understatement,” the club’s executive stated in a letter to its players as it launched an online petition with 350-plus signatures.
“Despite the fact the council knows it is actively damaging the potential development of over 300 local children that would (have) benefitted from the proposed netting upgrades, and several protests, the council has held firm.
“The upgrades were requested to bring the reserve to a standard where we could compete, nothing more, nothing less, something we all could be proud of.”
However, the council has committed to raise the flood-prone centre wicket and to upgrade the pavilion, such as by providing female changerooms.
Mayor Jim Memeti said extra practice nets would have required shifting a nearby mature gum tree. It would have added $150,000 to the project cost.
A possible solution was shifting the nets elsewhere in the reserve, but options were limited due to the “small” size of the reserve, Cr Memeti said.
The extra cost is still within Greater Dandenong Council’s $1.1 million budget for reserve upgrades in Silverleaf Ward.
The council committed $540,000 to upgrade WJ Turner Reserve to “appropriate standards”, community services director Martin Fidler said.
The remaining $560,000 would be spent at Barry Powell Reserve, in line with its masterplan, he said.
Earlier this year, the council investigated shifting Silverton Cricket Club to a proposed three-storey pavilion at Barry Powell.
Silverton Cricket Club life member Phil Mcleod questioned how the tree hadn’t been identified as an issue in the four previous master plans.
“There always seems to be an excuse.
“What next? The two-headed freckled long-dicky worm?”
Mr Mcleod said the club had been “betrayed” by the council and councillors.
“We must be the only club in Greater Dandenong to be the subject of four masterplans and the only club not be allocated for any capital funding for 40 years. I
“It’s all the more galling when the council has invested heavily in upgrading and improving facilities at neighbouring cricket clubs.”
