The Wagga Cricket Ground is one of the city’s oldest sporting venues but has been forgotten in recent years. Photo: Wagga Wagga City Council.
The desolate Wagga Cricket Ground is set to come alive once more after a new masterplan was approved by Wagga Wagga City Council (WWCC) this week.
The masterplan would see the removal of the velodrome, allowing for better playing areas for cricket and rugby competitions, upgrades to the existing facilities including the clubhouses and bathrooms and the introduction of new cricket nets and an electronic scoreboard.
WWCC’s Manager of City Growth and Regional Assets Ben Creighton said that with the plan endorsed at the most recent ordinary meeting, WWCC now had a blueprint of how to improve the facility in coming years.
“It’s a really important facility for the city, but really hasn’t had any significant planning or upgrades for a long period of time,” he said.
“This document outlines how council over the coming years and decades will develop that precinct to ensure that it continues to meet community expectations.”
Mr Creighton said the success of Pomingalarna’s bike facilities had contributed to WWCC’s decision to move forward with the masterplan.
“Part of the business case was that if we do build a velodrome at Pomingalarna, that would reduce the reliance on the velodrome in the city,” he said.
“The velodrome at the cricket ground is reaching the end of its life as well. There’s been a lot of maintenance work just to keep it going over the last few years, while the Pomingalarna precinct has really enabled us to make the decision to remove the velodrome.”
The public exhibition of the masterplan received a handful of submissions expressing opposition to the planned car park expansion and removal of the velodrome.
“We put it on public exhibition for the six-week period which came back with eight community submissions. We were able to address the concerns reasonably quickly, bring those back to council and get the tick of approval.
“Now that the plan has been approved we can start focusing on things like putting in cricket nets and remodelling the car park. We will also start building the business cases for some of the bigger elements of the masterplan and look to identify potential funding for those bigger tasks.”
Mr Creighton said he was hopeful the beginning stages of the project would commence by the end of the year.
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