By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Fertile ideas are welcome on how to revive a long-barren area of a Keysborough park.
Greater Dandenong Council will launch an online survey on the future of the ‘kick-around’ area at the corner of Westwood Bouleyard and Stanley Road.
The area with soccer goals often devoid of players, in marked contrast to the busy playground nearby.
The survey will ask why the area is not used and whether it should be replaced by playground equipment or other features.
Councillor Matthew Kirwan, who moved for the survey on 23 March, said he’d received regular complaints about the area’s uneven and unsafe surface.
Others had complained of the removal of AFL goals.
“What is consistent in the complaints is that residents don’t use the kickaround area for anything.
“It is treeless and barren so is not even desirable for a casual walk.”
In 2018, the Star Journal reported on the “vast dunes of grey sand” within the park’s ‘lawns’.
The soccer pitch is just “full of weeds and sand,” resident Zaneta Biskup said at the time.
“It’s terrible – you can’t imagine kids playing soccer and footy there.”
The council at the time had planted a warm-climate grass suitable for drought-tolerant conditions, with the promise that it would take 12 months to take root.
The area is now more fully grassed but the surface remains uneven, Cr Kirwan said.
The online survey will be conducted by the end of April. A council report on its results is expected to be tabled on 9 June.
