Court nets deal

By Tania Martin and Casey Neill
A LAST minute compromise has allowed a new netball court in an environmentally protected corridor to go ahead.
The 11th-hour decision came just in time as the Yarra Ranges Council faced losing a $70,000 grant for the project.
Mount Evelyn Environment Protection and Progress Association (MEEPA) has agreed to allow trees to be cut down to make way for the court at the town’s recreation reserve off Tramway Road.
Billanook Ward councillor Tim Heenan said the cash was part of the Rudd Government’s infrastructure stimulus package.
But the project had been in doubt with just weeks remaining on the deadline to spend the money.
Cr Heenan said one extension had already been granted.
The long-awaited court has been up in the air for more than three years as the council negotiated the location, which will be adjacent to the scoreboard at the oval.
Cr Heenan said there has been a need for the court ever since the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football Netball association deemed it necessary for netball to be played in the same location as football matches.
He said the girls had been playing at the courts in Morrison Reserve and it had been “disastrous”.
“They have no support and have been disconnected from the other families and friends with the boys playing footy down at the club,” Cr Heenan.
“It’s been terrible but they have still won grand final after grand final.”
Cr Heenan said MEEPA wanted it known it was not only committed to the environment but also to the community.
The deal will see a number of cyprus and pine trees removed as well as a grey gum which is in powerful owl’s flight corridor.
Mount Evelyn Football Netball Club netball coach Jade Hottes said he was thrilled with the news.
“I was still thinking ‘is this definite?’” she said.
“I’d heard it before. I needed some reassurance that it was really 100 per cent going to happen.
“It will be such a difference.”
Ms Hottes said having football and netball games at the same place would increase crowd numbers for the netballers and be more convenient for families.
“The footballers can’t come and watch us at the moment,” she said.
“Now we’ll have heaps of support. The court will only be 20 metres away.
“You can just wander from the oval to the netball.”
She said the move would also help the netballers feel more a part of the club.
“We do sometimes feel a bit isolated,” she said.
Ms Hottes said people were talking about plans for the court when she got involved with the club four years ago.
She was grateful for MEEPA’s support to make the project a reality.
“I don’t know what we would have done without them coming through for us,” she said.
“I felt like we weren’t going to get a court.”
“I was thrilled MEEPA were willing to compromise.”
The club will participate in working bees and open the court to the public as part of the deal.
“We’ll be the prime users but MEEPA was keen for the community to be able to use it, too,” she said.
Ms Hottes said the court should be ready to go by round five or six in late May if all goes according to plan.
MEEPA president Franc Smith said it was always a struggle to maintain a balance between the environment and community.
He said the association agreed to the move on the condition that a buffer zone including 20 mature native eucalypt trees be replanted.
They will be planted between the court and the edge of the forest which leads down to Olinda Creek.
Mr Smith said the decision was a win-win for both the environment and the sporting community.
Residents now have until 23 April to comment on a planning application for the removal of the grey gum tree.