Basketball is one of the fastest growing sports in the region and needs a facility that will support that growth.
The current lack of quality facilities means that hundreds of children in each age group cannot join the competition each season.
The NSW Government quite sensibly invests in programs like"Active Kids" that encourage greater participation in children's sport, understanding the physical and mental benefits of sporting participation. Building this facility is consistent with that approach and ought to be progressed.

This facility is desperately needed for the local community, and the proposed location is perfect.

I can not support this proposed location. It’s a flood zone, pasha bulker storm 2007 , mega storm a few years later are a couple of recent examples. You could argue that so is most of Newcastle now but this right next to a major storm drain.
When there is an event on at McDonald Jones stadium across the road, steets are closed and traffic mayhem. Cars are parked illegally consistently much to the council’s financial benefit, but not the safety of the public. The hockey fields across the road also add further pressure on traffic/parking. The high school which backs onto these established playing fields has its own traffic/parking requirements.
There is plenty of available land around this area, Chatham rd, Clyde st for example or is it just take the easy option?

I object - please refer to my submission attached.

My primary school aged son plays basketball with Newcastle Basketball. They need a new facility but I object to them building it on the 3 valuable green ovals near my home.

I live one street block from the site proposed for the Hunter Indoor Sports Centre (HISC). I heard about the proposal from my mother. Apart from a letter from Dpt of Planning a fortnight ago, I have never received any notification of the proposal except for letter drops by concerned residents who have formed the Save Our Lambton Ovals Facebook group.

I believe that consultation should have been held with stakeholders & the affected community. This has not been undertaken. Even the people living in the 20 units immediately next to the ovals were not notified of it.

I am a single parent & my two sons attend New Lambton Primary School (NLPS). NLPS does not have ANY green space – not even a patch of grass within the school grounds. I was very upset when I realised my children would have to go to NLPS as I believed they would have been zoned for Lambton Primary. The reason I didn’t want them going to NLPS is because both of them play sport & all they can do at NLPS is play under a covered outdoor area that is concreted.

There are over 600 students at NLPS & they have to share this one covered play area on concrete. To play sport they are required to walk to the 3 ovals which Newcastle Basketball wish to build the HISC on. My children complain that they have 5-10 minutes of teachers mustering everyone together, they then walk 20 minutes to the ovals, & they have to walk 20 minutes back to school. Their complaint is that they spend more time walking to & from, then they get to play the sport itself.

My sons are in years 5 & 6 next year. Both are keen to go to Lambton High School (LHS) which is the school they are zoned for, & also the school that is about 10 houses away from our home. When they heard that they might not have any green space at high school if this development is approved, both were very angry. In fact, one son is adamant that he will not go to LHS if it loses those ovals. He plays football & touch football all year round. When at home, he’s often across the road kicking a football around with his mates. We chose to live here because of this beautiful green area, & we do not support any development on the ovals – especially when it is just basketball (& minimal other indoor sports) that will be using it.

Currently the ovals are used every school day by the students at LHS. The school has used those ovals since it was built & I understand that was one of the reasons why it was built there in the first place. There are 1,200 students at LHS. If that green space was denied to them, they would be left with a couple of covered basketball courts & another 2 in the open. At the moment, a large number of the kids go out onto the ovals during classroom breaks & lunch time. My boys have so been looking forward to this.

The LHS P&C is opposed to the development of the ovals. This excerpt is from the Newcastle Herald.

Lambton High School parents are gearing up to fight Newcastle's new basketball stadium being built on the ovals where their children play sport and study PE.
"We're against it, yes," the school's Parents and Citizens group secretary, Jacqui Young, said on Wednesday after news emerged that Newcastle Basketball had lodged a scoping report for the stadium.
The Newcastle Herald reported on Saturday that the basketball association had started the development application process for the stadium on Wallarah and Blackley ovals beside Lambton High.
It hopes to start building in 2025 if the state planning minister approves what is classified as a state significant development.
The stadium and its car park will take up almost all of the two playing fields if approved.
The high school has 1200 students and rents the council-managed Crown land as a playground and sports space.
The P&C conducted a survey in July which found 83 per cent of parents and carers opposed the stadium being built next to the school and 55 per cent rated the stadium's impact on their children as "major", or 10 out of 10 on a sliding scale.
A total of 372 people responded to the survey.
"The P&C and the community have quite a few concerns, but the main ones are around the impact it has directly on the students' sport and PDHPE [Personal Development, Health and Physical Education]," Ms Young said.
"I think the current proposal is that we may be left with three quarters of a soccer field.
"There's no other area where we can expand to.
"I think it's been suggested we could use the fields that are further west, however, by the time you get your gear and you get a class to walk up to that intersection and set up you've impeded on lesson time.
"You're now asking students to cross a street. It's not an effective use of time."

This would put the high school in the same situation as my boys’ primary school. It would mean that to access any playing fields it would require the school undertaking risk management, excursion advices to all parents, increase in costs, decrease in play time, taking teachers away from other work (currently high school kids don’t need the high level of supervision that primary kids do), & taking a lot of time out from school work due to the need to travel further to play or exercise. Also, when the other ovals west of Wallarah Rd are all line marked, or the cricket pitch prepared for play, school students won’t be allowed to use them.

Both the high school & the adjoining ovals are owned by the government. The ovals should remain vacant so that both the primary & high schools can use them. They may also be needed if the Hunter Park & Broadmeadow Precinct plans increase the local population by another 40,000 residents.

The positive health benefits with kids playing sport is well documented. To lose these ovals would be a failure of our generation to forward plan for the needs of coming generations. They deserve better. More high rise units & flats are being built & when large developments are proposed they no longer need to provide sufficient parking.

I find it very difficult to enter or exit my home of a weekday afternoon & all weekend when sport is being played on the ovals in front of my home. Vehicles park right up to my driveway so that I have to enter or exit at a 90 degree angle from the opposite side of the road. I put up with this, because I chose to live here because of the green space & proximity to schools.

However, any time there is an event on at McDonald Jones Stadium the traffic & parking is absolute chaos, with thousands more motorists looking for parks. This happens fortnightly throughout the year. Council now has an application to add another 15 major events to the McDonald Jones calendar. I can’t object to that because I was never notified & now the time for objections has closed. Another 15 events would mean the parking chaos is almost every weekend.

This proposed development of the HISC would see more parking issues every afternoon & night during the week, & all weekend. The DA does not provide anywhere near enough parking for players so they’ll all use our streets. If players walk past bouncing basketballs on the footpaths, the noise will impact us all.

Currently the LHS classrooms look out over the green ovals. If the development is approved, they’ll have a 15 metre high ugly, large scale development next to them. The impact on the residents of the 20 units next door will be very negative.

We experience a very high volume of traffic when any event is on at the current stadium or hockey centre. If the basketball stadium is approved, that traffic increase will be daily. People could only drive into the proposed HISC from Turton Rd south. To get there they will have to come from the south or from our residential streets on the western side of Turton Rd.

This development should not be approved in this residential pocket of Lambton/New Lambton, & council & government should be fighting to retain all valuable green space in our expanding cities with increasing populations.

My major objections are (1) traffic and parking issues and (2) increased risk of flooding.

I live on Womboin Road and welcome the sports and entertainment that occur at McDonald Jones Stadium.
The additional traffic and parking requirements are not addressed in the DA.

TRAFFIC
3.22 Daily Demand
Usage mid week day time much Lower than Peak of 4pm to 8pm midweek. (Peak 480 visits per hour)
Saturday use is high but not as high as mid week.

3.2.3 Hours of operation 6am to 11pm.

EIS Figure 2.4 there is an imaginary train line in the development.
Love to know how this will be funded when Newcastle Plans were to run a train line through Brunker Road Broadmeadow
These plans are decades down the track based on the cost of the Hunter St light train.

EIS 2.3.1 Talks about Buses Turton Road B63
Intersects with Griffiths Road.
DA acknowledges current flooding of this major intersection but offers no solutions with the exception of installing bollards in the car park to prevent cars being washed away should there be a storm event. And, patrons will be advised not to park in designated car park should there be warnings of a pending storm or heavy rain event.
Young Road is closed during Major Events. (this already impacts on traffic)
Peak Periods will limit turning capacity (I think this figures are underestimated)
Parking permitted along Wallarah Road and Womboin Road - already fully used - no capacity for extra.
Does not appear they have done studies during a Big Event.
All they state are 'expected' and 'estimated'. Where are the 'actuals'

DA 2.5 states Pedestrian access crossing at Turton Road allows for safe and controlled pedestrian and cyclist movments)
(big events mean local police are employed to manage the pedestrian and traffic)

Pedestrian access to Hockey (from bike path to hockey) has already resulted in injuries to children.
Increased pedestrian activity will increase the chances of injury and possible one day a fatality.


2.6 to 2.6.3 acknowledges all the parking around proposed DA but fails to address current parking already impacts without
Consideration of the extra burden this development would bring.

2.7.4 Egress - exit
Ingress - entry
(Turton Road, Griffiths Road to Lambton Road will only be closed to traffic during egress) ?
Closing down Turton Road would create an absolute nightmare for the whole area.

Flooding already occurs at the intersection of Turton Road and Griffiths Road.
I wish the planners would actually speak with the locals and look at the increased risk of flooding that will occur.

Saturday 2 November, I heard on local radio that ninja's could not train at Blackley/Wallarah ovals today and were playing in Jesmond.
Only reason given was the parks are unavailable. Stadium not even built and already we are short of ovals based on this news report.
I lived through the 2007 floods in Newcastle (at the time I was living in St Georges Road, New Lambton). I lost everything and was homeless for 7 weeks until new tenancy could be found.
Local residences around these ovals cannot afford the estimated $13,000 per annum house insurance as it is.
Will insurance rates go even higher due to the higher risk of flooding.

Other issues that I believe ha e not been fully considered are:

Concern for the people living in Units next to Lambton High School (on Turton Road side) and how the proposed development will affect them visually and possible increased flood risk.

Woolworths Development on Lambton Road Broadmeadow rejected due to flooding and traffic issues.

Lambton High Students impacted and all future students in decades to come with loss of green space.
App LL Community Consultation
App II Social and Economic investment

Greg Piper has a proposal for Lake Macquarie / Glendale area. Why are other options not been considered.

Political Bias in a Labour Newcastle Council wanting this development which resulted in an Election of an Independent Mayor.
Community is angry that their local council members have not listened nor support any of their concerns.

Awabakal Land Claim on the site.

Impact of lighting and DA on wildlife. Many birds use these parks. Bats migrate at night from Blackbutt to up the North Coast crossing over Lambton and New Lambton areas.
Will lighting impact the bat migration. Has the environmental impact fully considered all ramifications.


COST
Currently have $25million. Expected cost in total $90 million
Where is the additional funding coming from.

I strongly OBJECT to any Development on the Wallarah and Blackley Ovals on the basis of all of the above.
I also draw attention to the wonderful airial photographs in the DA that give a biased view of showing how little green space the DA will take up compared to other green parks around.
Anyone who is not a local will look at these plans and believe there to be plenty of other green area's around these parks.
However ALL the green space in Lambton, New Lambton, Broadmeadow and surrounding area's are utilised and the loss of 3 open ovals will have a huge detrimental impact on the community.

I would like to make my objections to the Hunter indoor sports centre development for the following reasons:
Flooding: I am aware this area was heavily effected during the 2007 Pasha Bulker flood with many residencies being evacuated and flood damaged. The area is known to be flood prone. I know residents of this area have difficulty getting home insurance and when they can it is very costly. Early communications from Newcastle basketball were that they were aware of the flood risk and would be installing flood storage to help manage the possibility of flood inundation. I am unable to see any evidence of this in the flood report. What I did read in the flood report was they expect there may be some flooding in the car park and to avoid this, basketball patrons should consider parking in residential streets. Building a structure of this size in a land locked space I believe will cause more regular flooding than has been experienced in the past. This will directly impact local residents with possible damage to their homes. Putting a concrete slab over the 3 ovals, which currently absorb the water after big rain events will further increase the run off into the nearby drain, the roads and properties. The Broadmeadow place strategy has a flood map (see attached) that indicates that the ovals will become unsafe for people and vehicles and may result in structural damage to buildings in the event of a major inundation/weather event.
Traffic/parking: As noted above, the Flood management proposal suggests cars should park in the streets to avoid carpark flooding. The streets are already heavily utilized by local residents. The streets around the proposal are very narrow and when cars are parked on both sides of the road it becomes one way. Given the operational report indicates hours of opening are 6am-11pm x 7 days per week this will dramatically increase the number of cars in the local streets. While Newcastle basketball have said there is ample parking at the facility - 220 spots - I can not work out how the projected numbers of 500-800 per Waratah league game (every week) or 1000-1700 NBL1 games every three weeks fit into this equation. It is inevitable basketball patrons will park in the surrounding streets on a regular basis. I have spoken to representatives from NSW Ambulance and NSW Fire and rescue who have confirmed these narrow streets can not accommodate emergency vehicles which will result in residents being put at risk and denied emergency assistance if needed.
Loss of Lambton high emergency evacuation point: I am extremely concerned about the 1200 students of Lambton high and all of the staff should an emergency eg fire, flood, threat to lives occur and these ovals not be available as the emergency evacuation point. All other options for them to gather require crossing at least one road. In the event of an emergency this would create major stress and chaos on the students and staff as they disperse into residential streets. I am aware Lambton high school has a designated Autism class as well as a Special needs class. Extra support will be needed to assist these students and making this as easy as possible should be a priority.
I have found the official proposal to be inadequate and inaccurate. This is not the correct site for the proposed Hunter indoor sports centre and an alternative location should be sort