AFTER three decades of use, the pavilion at Bruce Park in Frankston has seen better days.
Bruce Park is home to three clubs – Frankston Rovers Junior Football Club, Bruce Park Tennis Club, and Heatherhill Cricket Club. Members of the clubs are pushing for a pavilion upgrade to help boost participation and welcome more female players.
Frankston Rovers JFC committee member David Bolton is advocating for the upgrade of the pavilion. He said that the current facilities are affecting levels of youth participation, particularly among girls.
“Our footy club is struggling to attract new kids and female participants. We lack female-friendly changerooms, they were built with male footballers in mind,” Bolton said. “How can you attract and hold new participants if your facilities are so bad?
“The first step is to get funding to get working drawings to accelerate the project.”
The Bruce Park clubs recently met with Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke, Dunkley MP Peta Murphy, and Frankston councillors to discuss the project.
Bolton said that the clubs received funding from council to put together concept plans in 2018, but that the project had since fizzled out. He has now called on council to help fund detailed designs and costings so that the project can be presented to other levels of government for funding.
The Bruce Park pavilion upgrade is in Frankston Council’s long term infrastructure plan. Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy says “Frankston City Council will consider future plans for the Bruce Park Pavilion as part of its ongoing review of the long term infrastructure plan.”
“Council’s current adopted advocacy priorities were informed by extensive community consultation,” he said.
Frankston Council’s website reads that it is advocating for external funding to progress the proposal. “The existing Bruce Park pavilion does not meet the current or future requirements of the existing users nor does it meet current building code requirements,” the website reads. “The proposed new Bruce Park Multipurpose Sports Pavilion will combine the existing tennis clubhouse with the existing cricket and football pavilion to provide a multipurpose, female friendly and all accessible pavilion which will include public amenities for the other reserve users.
“Bruce Park Pavilion is currently at concept design stage. Council is currently advocating for external funding for this project to progress.”
