Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Melville council will hold a special electors meeting after community members asked it to reconsider its approval of a controversial $4.68 million cricket pitch at John Connell Reserve.
Under the Local Government Act, the city must hold the meeting within 35 days of receiving a valid petition.
Bull Creek Leeming Community Action Group and Melville Tree Canopy Advocates’ respective convenors Jason Meotti and Esther Cole invoked the legislation when they presented a petition to the city on Tuesday morning.
The groups gathered 645 signatures, more than double the 300 required to call the special meeting, in less than three weeks.
Mr Meotti said the groups hoped a rescission motion for the project would pass at the meeting. If the motion passes a vote, councillors will then be required to consider the issue at the next ordinary meeting.
He said the project needed to go through “the proper planning process” with better consultation.
“I’m calling on the mayor to schedule the special electors meeting before the June ordinary council meeting so no ratepayer money or staff time is wasted on a project that simply doesn’t pass the pub test,” Mr Meotti said.
“Our volunteers have door-knocked life-long Leeming residents who had never even heard about the proposal, highlighting just how inadequate the community consultation process has been.
“We’ve collected more than 650 signatures in under three weeks. That shows the depth of community concern about this poorly planned and expensive project when we’re in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.”
Council voted to approve the project in April, allowing the Leeming Spartans Cricket Club to clear up to 0.68ha of bushland at John Connell to install a new pitch.
The clearing permit, approved by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, enforced a $1.3m replanting project at nearby Ken Hurst Reserve to offset the environmental impacts.
Concerns have been raised over the low planting survival rate at Ken Hurst, which could further increase the project’s costs.
Local residents and community groups have expressed disappointment with the development online, deploring the tree clearing and potential rates increases that could be required to fund the project.
Ms Cole said the quick sign-up rate for the petition showed how invested the community was in the issue.
“When you tell people about it, not everyone’s aware, they’re going to remove bushland, and it’s almost $5m for a cricket oval, unfunded,” she said. “Where is that money coming from?”
Tangney Federal MP Sam Lim awarded $650,000 in Federal Government funds to the Spartans Cricket Club in 2022 to expand its facilities.
The club plans to contribute $470,000 remaining in its accounts to the project. The city also plans to seek State or Federal funding for 50 per cent of the remaining cost.
Mr Meotti emphasised the petitioners were not opposed to expanding local sport facilities, but thought other projects in the pipeline should not suffer as a result.
“We’re not saying kill this project off altogether,” he said. “We’re just saying let it go through the normal process; if it stacks up, it’ll get through.
“We’re talking about a lot of money. This will also give (council) the opportunity to secure that State and capital funding, and maybe come up with an alternative for clearing the bushland.”
The city is also advertising a proposed rates increase for residents, with some councillors questioning if the multimillion-dollar John Connell project was partly to blame for the hike.
PerthNow revealed last week that a council report said the rate rise was needed to help pay for infrastructure supplies and to prevent the council from dipping into its financial reserves.
Director of corporate services Gary Tuffin told a council meeting two weeks ago, that the city had to find an additional $200,000, after the council approved the cricket pitch project, which is not yet included in the city’s budget.
This week, Melville mayor Katy Mair said the proposed 5 per cent rate increase was not linked to design work for the new cricket pitch.
“$200,000 has been included in the draft annual budget 2026-2027 for the detailed design work for the John Connell field extension, in the budget, which will be adopted next month,” she said.
“This represents 0.085 per cent of the overall budget expenditure in the 2026-27 draft annual budget, which has no impact on the 5 per cent proposed rate increase for 2026-2027, in line with Perth CPI inflation figure of 4.9 per cent.”
Ms Mair said the city was still sourcing funding for the project.
