Canberra's 'critical' community sport venue crisis

Nearly every sport is crying out for more fields, more courts, and upgraded facilities for competitions. As Canberra grows rapidly through a development boom in nearly every suburb, so does the population of kids wanting and needing to play sport.

Participation rates in basketball in particular are soaring to all-time highs, but the rate of development for competition-ready facilities has not kept up.

That's what has led to the "dire" current state of venue availability in Canberra, and prompted ACT Basketball chief executive Nicole Bowles to make a very public pitch for funding attention.

"Canberra is more than the Parliamentary Triangle. We are a thriving community and we are worth investing in to have good infrastructure to make sure we're healthy, active, and able to participate and enjoy life in Canberra - it is critical for us," Bowles told The Canberra Times.

"When you look at every other basketball association around the country getting a minimum of six, 12, 18 court facilities, and I'm here asking for four, it just makes you shake your head with where we're at.

"We have got a proposal forward, and are having really great discussions with the government as to how we can bring these new courts to life. But now is the time where we need to act."

Unlike past attempts in the last decade from Basketball ACT to seek funding, Bowles said they are in a stronger position now everything needed is in place to get the $30 million project underway.

"We've never had the whole plan, where we have the land, the feasibility study, which we now do," she said.

"Once the investment is there, we are ready to move on it and make a significant contribution to the community in a really short amount of time."

This Saturday the Canberra Gunners and Canberra Nationals will take on the ladder-leading Inner West Bulls in their respective NBL1 East men's and women's matches, with Belconnen Stadium expected to be another sell-out.

Over 500 turn out in attendance every weekend for these semi-professional fixtures and a revitalised venue would also allow for a greater experience for fans.

Schools have carried some of the load in hosting community basketball competitions due to the venue shortage, but most are suited only for training purposes.

Bowles feels a great sense of urgency to get the new courts project greenlit as she fears the impact on the basketball community should they continue to be ignored.

"The response to our pitch has been positive," she said. "We've been in contact with all of the ministers across Canberra, both the ACT Legislative Assembly, and federal representatives, just reinforcing our cause and our reasons why, and waiting for some further information from them.

"I know that we're in the midst of the budget cycle and they're planning a whole bunch of things.

"We just wanted to make sure they were aware that as a community organisation, we have needs, and should be considered."

The ACT government is trying to address this community sport venue issue with drip-feed funding toward easy fixes like toilet and change room improvements, and shipping container canteens.

More needs to be done but even when funding is allocated, completion can be slow-going, as seen in Throsby's Home of Football, which was a joint venture of the ACT government and Capital Football investing $33.5 million.

Due to increased building costs since the 2019 announcement that budget has blown out to nearly $50 million, resulting in a funding shortfall, a complete halt on the project, and a potential scaling back of the original plans.

Late last year the ACT government did announce their plans to commit funds to sports infrastructure in the near future, with its first step establishing a sport strategy for the next five years, in an aim to further grow participation. No further details have followed though.

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