A new sport and rec centre for Myuna Bay
12th December 2019
Some big news this morning on the future of Myuna Bay Sport and Rec Centre. I'm about to attend a media conference where Acting Sports Minister Geoff Lee will announce what I believe is a pretty good result, but I wanted to let you, and the 20,000 people who signed our petition, know the news first.
We’ve been able to negotiate an agreement that will deliver a new state-of-the-art sport and rec centre on a waterfront site not far from the existing one at Myuna Bay.
This was necessary because the second independent report has come back and unfortunately it recommends that the existing centre should not be reopened on the current site.
Here are the key details of the agreement:
• Origin Energy will pay for a new sport and rec centre to be built on a nearby site it owns. The Office of Sport will be given a 99-year lease on that waterfront site. Planning and construction will be fast tracked.
• Origin Energy will be required to urgently repair its ash dam wall at Eraring because, as it stands, it poses a risk not just to the Sport and Recreation Centre but to the lake and to anyone travelling on Wangi Road.
• The existing site will be retained in Government hands. It will be rehabilitated and revegetated at Origin’s cost and protected from any sort of future development, which I know will ease the concerns of some people.
• All current Myuna Bay staff will be offered redundancy, redeployment to other sport and rec centre sites in the interim, and given priority re-employment when the new centre is opened.
• The water ski club will be compensated for its tournament losses by Origin. Its sheds and equipment will be relocated, again at Origin’s cost, while access to Whiteheads Lagoon or a new location are subject to further negotiations with the club.
• Origin has also agreed to compensate Morisset Rotary Club for the loss of its storage shed on the Myuna Bay site, and for costs incurred since the closure.
I stand by the view that this closure was handled appallingly and I believe that the risk posed to the Sport and Recreation Centre by the ash dam wall is so infinitely small that it didn’t warrant the panicked response. That said, we need to accept the independent reviews now and move on with what I think is a good result.
Most importantly, I want to acknowledge the many thousands of people who have contacted my office and played an active role in getting this result.
This deal simply wouldn’t have happened without the fight that our community has put up. I thank every one of you.