Newport’s $230,000 Bryan Martyn Oval multi-sport training facility was officially opened on Friday.
The centre has flexible netting for cricket training on six synthetic wickets that can be packed away to leave an acrylic netball court.
Hobsons Bay council contributed $120,000 and the state government $70,000 towards the project.
Newport Power Netball Club put in $20,000 and Newport Digman Cricket Club contributed $16,420 and $3500 of in-kind support.
Club president Rachael Ferrari said her 200 members were thrilled with the floodlit court after previously having to train in the carpark.
“When Bryan Martyn Oval was being developed, that was the only spot the netball club could actually train in,” she said. The club has grown from about 80 to 200 members in under two years.
Ms Ferrari said the best thing about the new court was the lighting.
“We can actually now train at night. We’ve been hiring facilities for our older girls. We’ve probably hired four courts around the area so all of our teams could train during the week of an evening and now we don’t have to do that purely because we have our own facility with lights.”
Mayor Peter Hemphill said sport infrastructure would be a focus of his mayoral year.
“There will be a number of sports-specific workshops with sports clubs in the new year to discuss their future needs and the use and maintenance of our existing facilities,” he said.
