The Sydney South Hockey Association would like to provide its members and the hockey community with an update on the Greenhills Hockey Park project to ensure that the community is aware of what is happening.
Everything was looking very positive in February this year and all information from Sutherland Shire Council and several site inspections by Board members led us to believe we should be playing at Greenhills by May at the latest.
This was the situation until we were told at a meeting with Council on 2 March that there was a ‘major problem’ regarding the connection of power to the site.
This was the first indication that there might be a problem with power connection. We were not impressed to be told by Council at this late stage that its project management team had not identified and addressed the works required to facilitate the provision of power to the site for handover and the possibility Ausgrid could take several months to complete the power connection.
Alternatives
A further meeting with Council was held on 6 March to discuss alternative avenues for temporary power supply until the main supply could be connected by Ausgrid. The follow-up information from Council did not provide us with good news. Council’s temporary solutions were convoluted and expensive and not in keeping with the opening of a brand new state-of-the-art hockey complex.
The positive news is that all construction works for the fields, lighting, fencing and amenities block are either on or ahead of schedule. These works are under the direct control of Council. The weather gods must have known what was about to happen, because as soon as Polytan decided to commence laying the turf, it started to rain, and rain and ….
Despite this, we are still ahead of schedule with this part of the project and should remain so. There is green turf laid at Greenhills and it is looking very much like a hockey field.
The access road and carpark are also on schedule, although progress on these developer controlled works will be a little delayed due to the weather. There is nothing that can be done about that but we don’t expect it to be a significant impediment.
Great deal of work
A great deal of work has been done by the Sydney South board in organising what was hoped would be a seamless and early transfer of junior hockey from Jenola to Greenhills for the 2017 winter season.
We have also worked with the Moorebank Hockey Club and Sydney East Hockey Association (SEHA) in order to have our clubs’ teams playing at Greenhills this season. Both the Moorebank and SEHA committees fully understood and were co-operative in this endeavour, for which we are extremely grateful.
Sutherland Hockey Club had also discussed entering a number of their Under 11 teams in the Sydney South competition and was happy to do so if we could arrange timely access to the new fields. This was a huge step forward for local junior hockey.
This possibly lengthy delay has seen a number of our strategies for growing competitions at home put on hold as teams keen to play at Greenhills have had to commit to other competitions for the 2017 season.
So much work wiped out for the lack of a switch to click!
Expectation
Our expectation is that our junior competition (for divisions under 13 and younger) will still move to Greenhills during the 2017 season but start at Jenola. Our high school girls’ competitions will commence at Moorebank and Sylvania and then move to Greenhills. We will continue to put pressure on Council to ensure that the rest of us also have the opportunity to experience that pleasure before the season is out.
Council are still working on the issues affecting the project and have undertaken to provide fortnightly updates (or more often as the need arises) and regular site meetings with the Sydney South board until such time as a viable solution is reached.
We ask that you please ignore unsubstantiated stories circulated by people not connected with the Sydney South board. They do more harm than good and do nothing to aid relationships with Council and other Associations. Most importantly they portray the ‘truth’ based on little fact.
The Board welcomes questions from clubs and players, and we will do our best to answer them based on the fortnightly updates from Council. You can personally contact me at sydneysouthassoc.yahoo.com.au should you want to further discuss the issues we face.
Yours in Hockey
Angelo Donni
President, Sydney South Hockey Association
sydneysouthassoc@yahoo.com.au
21 March 2017
