Media release – Guy Barnett, Minister for State Development, Construction and Housing, 5 June 2023
Wilkinsons Point multi-sport facility one step closer
The new $49 million multi-sport facility at Wilkinsons Point Glenorchy is one step closer with the lodgement of the project’s development application (DA) with the Glenorchy City Council.
Minister for State Development, Construction and Housing, Guy Barnett, said lodging the DA was an important milestone towards a contemporary indoor multi-sport facility for the community and high-performance training facilities for the JackJumpers.
The DA comes after extensive consultation and engagement with sporting community and the JackJumpers to develop a design that caters for multiple sporting codes and their growing needs.
“The design caters to local and regional basketball, netball, volleyball and futsal training and competition, gymnastics and other traditional indoor sports,” Minister Barnett said.
“Perhaps most importantly, the wider community facility will be available for community use seven-days-a-week with four indoor courts, a gymnastics facility, café and amenities providing a new local hub of activity.
“In addition to the community four-court facility, the building will now also incorporate a training centre for the JackJumpers.
“The JackJumpers’ high-performance training facility will have two basketball courts, a gym and training and recovery areas with the courts available for community use when the team isn’t using them.
“It means local amateurs and children will get to play on the same courts that their heroes train on and our local sporting competitions can grow in size and quality.
“This will bring community and elite sports together with state-of-the-art training facilities and create a new sporting hub in southern Tasmania.
“A facility like this will encourage more young Tasmanians to get into sport for fun, health or competition, possibly even taking some to the highest level on the national or international stage,” Minister Barnett said.
Tasmania’s ARTAS Architects, working with global architecture firm Populous, is designing the multi-sport facility which will be located next to MyState Bank Arena.
Minister Barnett said subject to a DA being successfully granted, the facility will be ready for tender and construction next year with planned completion in late-2025.
Media release – Josh Willie MLC, Shadow Minister for Sport, 5 June 2023
Cost blowouts and broken promises on crucial sporting infrastructure
Shadow Sports Minister Josh Willie today said the Liberal government has been plagued with cost blowouts and broken promises for indoor sporting infrastructure for Hobart’s Northern suburbs.
Originally the Liberals announced in 2018 that they would build a state of the art nine court multi court stadium in the Northern suburbs for $10m.
Then they announced with great fanfare in September 2020, they would build a new four court indoor stadium beside the Derwent Entertainment Centre (DEC) and that it would be up and running by 2022.
They said construction would start in September 2021 and be complete by July 2022.
Unsurprisingly, nothing has happened.
Minister Nic Street also announced in March 2022 that consultation was open for a State Sporting Infrastructure Plan and that consultation would end in April 2022.
Again, nothing has happened.
Meanwhile our grass roots sporting participants continue to play in infrastructure that was built in the 1960s that is ageing and crumbling like the Moonah Indoor Sports Centre and the indoor centre in Rosny.
This is a government that breaks promises and has its priorities all wrong.
There’s still no new indoor sports centre beside the DEC, which will now cost $49.7m or the State Sporting Infrastructure Plan yet the government has no hesitation in committing $460 million for a football stadium at Macquarie Point.
This government is all announcement and no delivery.
