Our kids will love it

I wish to express my strong support for the proposed indoor sports centre and basketball stadium in our local community.
I believe this facility will bring significant benefits, particularly for the young people in the area and local school children having access to safe, engaging and healthy environment to participate in sports and physical activity. The centre will encourage active lifestyles and physical activity, teamwork, resilience and a sense of belonging in the community.
This facility will bring significant benefits for a whole range of people in the community.
Any initial concerns have been addressed through consultation with the planning team and I am now confident that the project will be a valuable and positive addition to our community.
The centre will offer opportunities beyond basketball. With facilities that can support a range of other sports.
I commend this project and urge its approval for the benefit of our community both now and into the future.

Well over due

This great for our town and kids.

In the past we as a family often used this space, I feel it's important to maintain open areas where ordinary people can enjoy open outdoors and even see the horizon. This development while good for the (I suggest) very small basketball community, will rob the the rest of the community including Lambton High of a valuable flexible open area. Surely the current site can be upgraded to meet what they need without taking what never can be returned.

As a parent to a basketball player, I strongly support the proposal to build a new multi purpose indoor sports centre for Newcastle. The popularity of basketball in Newcastle is such that the number of court sessions available each week in the old facility is significantly less than that which are required to satisfy demand, meaning that a large number of potential teams are unable to join the competition and children in particular are missing out on the opportunity to play sport. The proposed new larger facility will help to meet this need and also provide first class facilities, adjacent to established facilities for other sports in the Newcastle Sport Precinct. Players and supporters of indoor sports and basketball in particular, are deserving of a new larger facility to meet demand as soon as possible and continued delays in seeing a new facility constructed are only hurting the reputation of the sport in the area and denying access to the sport to potential players.

Newcastle is one of the largest basketball associations in NSW and yet we have facilitates that don't currently cater for the population it serves. The stadium is also currently in a state of disrepair, rendered unusable during periods of heavy rain and hot summer temperatures as well as the risk of debris falling from the ceiling. Junior competitions fill within days, leaving many on waiting lists and many miss out entirely. There are so many initiatives aimed at enticing kids to play basketball and yet there isn't the court capacity to cope. Currently NBL1 teams cannot train on their home courts like other associations. Other sports are also reliant on our facilities such as volleyball, pickleball and futsal. Futsal alone has thousands of members. The teams training on the green space need to learn to share the space and there are other options available to them. The allocated space per player is much smaller for stadium-based sports therefore it benefits so many more people. Government is planning to build a significant number of high-rise apartments in the precinct. These kids will also need to be active and play sports. More sporting events in Newcastle also brings in more tourist dollars. Local families can come along to the basketball and netball games and not just to footy games. We love attending NBL1 Falcons games as a family; what quality time it is! Kids hang out with their friends in a safe and supervised environment and parents cheer and socialise. Women's basketball is also in a huge growth period. We need girls to stay in sport so we need to offer them more unique opportunities for engagement. How about walking basketball for those over 50? More court space for wheelchair basketball too. Our representative teams need more court time to train and scrimmage more regularly against other local associations, allowing us to be more competitive against Sydney and other state teams. It would be amazing to host a WNBL team, with a pathway from juniors all the way through to the NBL1 and WNBL teams, with the associated high performance infrastructure. We have some of the best coaches in Australia in the Hunter Region, such as Tim Mallon, Kristy Flores and Dr Adrian Hurley OAM, and we are not fully utilising them. What a lost opportunity. I strongly believe that Newcastle Basketball has catered for the concerns of the neighbours and nearby schools. The new stadium design is impressive, and I strongly support it moving ahead ASAP. Some may think Novocastrians only live and breathe football. You could not be more wrong. Bring on the fans and the many, many kids and adults who will be happier and healthier playing sport in the new Hunter Indoor Sports Centre. Full steam ahead!

Very much needed for children’s sports

The Hunter Region's lack of indoor sports facilities limits high-performance training opportunities for juniors across various sports. It also prevents us from hosting professional sporting events, that not only boost local revenue and tourism, but also inspire young people by giving them the chance to experience elite-level sport up close. Investing in a modern indoor facility would help keep more kids engaged in sport and open the door to greater community and economic benefits.

I remain opposed to the development at this location. I do believe that a new stadium should be built, however, I cannot support the stadium being built in this location.
I do not support for the following reasons:
- Lack of initial consultation and subsequent poor community consultation in determining the site.
- Loss of green space.
- Loss of playing space for other sporting codes
- Loss of amenity for nearby residents
- Loss of evacuation space, playing space, recreation space for Lambton High School. Lambton HS students will be severely impacted by this change.
- Severe flooding impacts, the current ovals act as flood overflow and the 90% concrete replacing will cause flooding impacts on nearby residents in Monash Rd, Gloucester Ave, Duke St, Marina Ave etc.
- Severe parking impacts on nearby residents (Newcastle Basketball’s reports explicitly state that nearby streets can and will absorb traffic overflow).
- Traffic issues on Turton Rd from entry and exit of hundreds of vehicles to and from the stadium.
I also have serious concerns that Newcastle Basketball cannot afford to build the stadium and will be reliant upon further funding sources. This has been detailed well in a Newcastle Herald article.