By Benjamin Millar
Plans by Australia’s largest soccer club to build a multimillion-dollar complex in a public park have raised the ire of nearby residents, who say the development would eradicate some of the last open parkland in Melbourne’s inner west.
Melbourne Victory revealed in October last year it had received $10 million in state government funding to help it build an $18 million women’s and youth academy in heritage-listed Footscray Park.
Occupying the entire flat parkland to the west of the park, the complex would include three floodlit synthetic and turf soccer pitches, six change-rooms and a 500-person stand.
Residents say they are concerned that one of their suburb’s biggest off-lead dog walking and recreation areas will be confined to a walking path around the pitches.
Sharon Schwab, whose online petition against the plan has more than 1900 signatures, said she opposed the concept of a private development on public land.
“Council’s proposal to lease our park’s only flat open recreational space will leave nowhere for the community to go that is suitable for non-organised sports, general recreation and large gatherings for the community,” she said.
Maribyrnong chief executive Stephen Wall said the academy would be a “great thing for young people”.
“Having recreation facilities that can come to our city with external funding is certainly a positive,” he said.
Former Maribyrnong mayor Sara Coward, who has been using the park for off-lead dog walking for 30 years, said she did not agree the development would be an enhancement for the broader public.
“Yes there’s gains for some parts of the community, but it seems to me there’s losses for a larger part,” she said.
A Melbourne Victory spokesman said inquiries about the project should be directed to Maribyrnong council.
– with The Age
