By Gyfox - 17 Feb 2021 4:20 PM
+x+xI think Launceston will soon be dropped from being a host city for 2023WWC and then the retractable seating will disappear from the proposal in my view. There will be no money spent on the stadium for AFL unless there is a team here which is unlikely. I agree with the first paragraph, but not the second. I'm sure that the upgrade for York Park is purely with AFL in mind, with the retractable seating for the soccer (probably just temporary stands that you can hire from anywhere set up on the grass) just being a pretext. If the $109m portion of the budget was really for rectangular facilities they'd build a rectangular facility.
LCC is fishing for funding for the ultimate upgrade of the UTAS Stadium site. The proposal attempts to address the 4 areas of deficiency in infrastructure in Northern Tasmania where half of the population of Tasmania lives.
The State Government is pressing the AFL to have an AFL team located permanently in Tasmania and as a previous (Bacon) Government decided that York Park would be the venue for AFL in Tasmania LCC is seeking to have the venue upgraded to a standard appropriate for that team. The part of the proposal that does this is the increase in seating to 23,000 and the inclusion of training facilities within the the indoor stadium building which is part of the proposed works at the southern end of the ground. In my view if the AFL does not accede to the Government's request then any works to improve the stadium will not get financial support to the level required for the whole LCC proposal.
LCC, aware that the 3 rectangular pitch codes have good support within the Tasmanian sporting community and that fans will travel to attend showpiece events, has included retractable seating in the new stands on the northern and eastern sides of the stadium. This has been strongly supported by the CEO of Football Tasmania, Bob Gordon. As I said in my previous post I think this will be dropped from the proposal if Launceston is dropped as a 2023 WWC host city but if the venue could attract a couple of games a year from each code then it might be worthwhile.
Basketball is a pretty big sport in Tasmania and the existing venues in Northern Tasmania are inadequate and overused so including a multi-court venue in the proposal is a great idea. Having it able to morph into a high quality entertainment venue or a 5,000 seat main court similar but slightly smaller than the Derwent Entertainment Centre in Hobart would overcome two of the region's infrastructure needs. Currently the Collingwood Magpies Netball club plays games in Launceston and I read today that Netball Tasmania is intending to apply for a club in the National Netball League for 2023 when Collingwood's contract with the Government expires so that would provide a regular tenant.
Overall the proposal is quite sensible but it depends on all the planets aligning for it to come off. In my view the most likely outcome is the indoor stadium getting the nod including the changes to the southern stand.
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