Millicent Spencer
The Gladstone Park Cricket Club is urging Hume council to upgrade the pavilion at the Jack Ginifer Reserve to meet the club’s needs.
Gladstone Park Cricket Club president Sam Anastasiou said there has been no funding allocated to upgrade the facilities since the pavilion was built in the ’80s.
“There’s no funding that’s been put in it at all – in 40 years,” he said.
“The rooms are out of date … and to access the change rooms you’ve got to go through the ladies toilets or males toilets and it’s just not a good look.”
Mr Anastasiou said the club hosts several matches with away teams and the teams deserve better facilities.
“We growing, we’ve probably got just as many sides as Westmeadows [and] Tullamarine, and it just seems like we’re getting left behind,” he said.
“We’re running a juniors program … and we have 15-20 kids coming across to learn how to play cricket.”
The club’s treasurer Marco Castelli said the outdated facilities are holding the club back.
“Sporting clubs rely on the canteen and bar and we don’t have the opportunity to do that,” he said.
“The kitchen area doesn’t give us the opportunity to actually put on meals [and] we have about 30-35 senior players every Thursday night that come for a meal [which] we have to go and buy and bring in.
“We do believe the additional funding is required to get up to a bare minimum.”
Meadow Valley ward councillor Naim Kurt said it is necessary for the council to make a quick decision over the investment in the pavilion which has been neglected for too long.
“The Gladstone Park community has for a long time felt they have missed out on a lot of infrastructure upgrades and community facility upgrades,” he said.
“That reserve has had very minimal council investment.
“We should put the money in and get the project started.”
Cr Kurt said a recent audit of all the pavilions in the municipality showed that the Jack Ginifer Reserve pavilion is not compliant with modern sports standards and is not female friendly.
Currently the change rooms are only accessible via the women’s bathrooms and both Mr Anastasiou and Cr Kurt said this was of concern.
At the last council meeting on November 28 it was agreed that councillor’s would review a report containing more details on the reserve at the next meeting.
“If we are a council of our word, we need to follow that,” Cr Kurt said.
