Long time supporter of the Mitcham Football and Cricket Clubs Michael Sukkar, Federal Member for Deakin announced at the Comedy Night a $400,000 federal grant towards an upgrade and redevelopment of the club rooms at Walker Park in Mitcham, under a re-elected Turnbull Liberal Government. Michael Sukkar said that the $400,000 investment would ensure the club rooms at Walker Park can accommodate the growing clubs’ needs.
“This is a big club and it’s only getting bigger. The current facilities are simply inadequate, and a redevelopment is long overdue.
“It is a credit to the clubs how well they have been able to maintain the existing facilities for social events and club gatherings and they deserve this recognition for all their efforts,” Michael said.
The Club hopes to start design plans as soon as possible. Early discussions around the redevelopment of the club rooms have focused on a new functions area, and better amenities like more disability-friendly toilets and female change rooms.
Matt McCubbin Senior President said that “its exciting times for the club, we have tasted the ultimate success last year and trying to build a genuine Community club but unfortunately our social club and toilets facilities really are out dated. As president and a committee it’s important to play for today and plan for tomorrow and both myself and Gavin Ward have been in discussion with Michael as to how we best can fund improvements at Walker Park”
Craig Giles, President, Mitcham Junior Football Club said that “the existing facilities are just too small and dated to bring the entire club and community together in the one place at the one time.
“There are over three hundred juniors at the footy club, and over one hundred children in Auskick programs, but when we have jumper presentation, we have to stagger it out over several nights. There’s just not enough space to accommodate everyone,” Mr Giles said. Mr Giles also welcomed the funding to accommodate the expansion into girls’ football by providing more suitable change rooms.
Kenny OMeara President of The Mitcham Cricket Club said that ‘This is great opportunity for us to create a club for generations to come, we will work together with the footy club as the facility is under the Mitcham Sporting club banner, our numbers too have risen with 6 senior teams, 8 junior teams plus our Milo Cricket and Veterans teams, so when you add up all the stake holders of both clubs there really are lot of members and our facility needs to represent that. We thank Michael for his offer and look forward to working with him after the election to ensure we deliver a great facility"
The announcement comes in addition to a delivered 2013 election commitment to invest $30,000 for the installation of new safety nets at the scoreboard end of the ground
Last Modified on 07/06/2016 19:34