Feighan Park was earmarked to be included in a multi-million-dollar strategy to improve sports facilities by Lake Macquarie City Council in 2015, and now progress has begun on the park based on the corners of Seaman Avenue and New Road.

The plans by council – which are designed to benefit to a host of Lake Macquarie cricket teams as well as the Warners Bay Bulldogs AFL club – would see new amenities and a car park added to a new facility based along Seaman Avenue.

The current location for the shared cricket and AFL clubhouse runs along New Road, on the southern side of the sporting fields.

According to Allan Tisdell, the spokesperson for the group of concerned residents, new sight screens, goal posts and fences all would “impact the visual aspect of the residential area”.

Mr Tisdell also revealed the residents group met in October of last year to discuss these issues, with problems around excess water pooling after heavy rainfall, and the fact Feighan Park’s soil is contaminated with lead and will be disturbed during construction both also being raised.

“Last year we raised these concerns, after a package notification arrived in the mail in regards to the developments,” Ms Tisdell said.

“This new development will see one hundred metre trenches for utilities, and that’s going to come from the existing site down to the new area of the oval, which will disturb so much of the contaminated lead soil.

“We challenged council over this and then set up a meeting, but they told us that it was years in planning and we were told us at a meet [last October] it was council land that didn’t need consultation from residents.”

Lake Macquarie council's manager for community planning Wes Hain responded to the concerns raised by residents, and revealed council had taken “extensive steps” to ensure they had selected the locations that “best suited the clubs, and the necessary development”.

“We had to work with contemporary standards in terms of the size and number of change-rooms, canteen size, storage space, spectator toilets – male, female and accessible – and when we worked through those standards with the AFL and cricket clubs we came up with a design that would accommodate all that,” Mr Hain explained.

“From there we looked at existing constraints on the site, which included pre-installed fields, nets, lighting and irrigation, and worked with a number of options.

“One of the options was looking at the same location as the existing building, one was towards the south-east end on the edge of New Road, and then the option that we eventual determined was best – the western side close to Seaman Avenue.”

Mr Hain explained that due to the “modern requirements” of the facilities, the Seaman Avenue edge was the only option that worked for the clubs, spectators and developers.

Lake Macquarie’s manager for community planning also said the new car park – to be installed at the same time as the new clubhouse – had taken all steps to ensure “water would not pool on the edges of the development”.

Mr Hain explained the new irrigation system, which would require the movement of some soil and dirt at the sporting fields, would go a long way to “allowing better run-off during wet periods, to mitigate any over-flow that may cause concerns for residents and spectators”.

Steven Cowen, council’s community land planner for sports, also confirmed they had conducted extensive discussions with both local residents and representatives from Warners Bay sporting groups.

“We have a lot of support and backing from all the sporting clubs, they’re really, really keen for this development to take place,”

“It’s going to improve the sporting outcome not just for the local sporting teams, but also visiting clubs and everyone that uses the location for athletics and sport.”

Mr Hain concluded that “although residents may not believe right now this is the best outcome, certainly council for the sporting facility, and the users of that facility”. 

The developments at Feighan Park are set to begin with the car park installations in October of this year, while the main construction of the amenities building will begin soon after.

Council has estimated the developments will take six months from starting date, and will run adjacent to similar developments already underway in Seaman Avenue.

Lake Macquarie council’s developments in the third year of the sports facility upgrade plans was also originally announced to include:

The full plans for the Feighan Park sports facility upgrades are available online from the Lake Macquarie council website.