Bob Campbell Oval Update

It appears that the environmental assessment, (Review of Environmental Factors), and the Part 5 approval by Council (Its environmental sign off under the E P & A Act), together with the legal sign off under Council's probity plan will not be released before Council elections.

A recent GIPA (FOI) request has revealed that the contractor Council has appointed to instal the synthetic ground at BCO has yet to pay a deposit to the manufacturer of the synthetic grass. We have further learned from Council that this deposit amount is modest.

Meanwhile, the Chief Scientist and Engineer is undertaking an investigation of the impacts of synthetic turf following the release of the Minister's review.

On Tuesday residents of St Vincents St and River Rd received notice that Council will commence work on the Shared User Path (SUP) between Gore St and Greenwich Rd on 22 November. The SUP forms part of the Master Plan Project approved by the Department of Planning and should therefore form part of the Review of Environmental Factors.

Further, there is no available DPIE grant funding for this SUP following the cost blow out of the synthetic oval which absorbed the full $3.623m grant. The SUP (including the section from Gore St to BCO) was previously budgeted in Council's grant application as $531k.

Whilst the GCA agrees that safe bicycle access to BCO should form part of any BCO plan we believe there should be no construction of any element of the SUP until the REF is to hand - and a full costing of the SUP all the way to BCO is available.