COMMENT – MATT TAYLOR
THE Dreamtime at the P concept has proven a resounding success.
Hats off to the three main organisers, Michael “Boozer” Robertson, Damien Hall and Ben Ridley, who doubled as an assistant coach with the Sunraysia senior football team.
Boozer, in particular, has put in an enormous amount of hard work over the past few months to make the Dreamtime day happen.
Unfortunately, the weather gods weren’t kind to the organisers for the big day, which featured representative footy and netball from noon until the main game’s final siren just before 8pm.
It was estimated 3000 people flocked to Mildura Sporting Precinct over the course of the day.
The problem for many of them, though, was the absence of undercover seating around the premier oval.
It again exposed one of the biggest planning failures in the rollout of the $46 million facility: no refuge from the wet directly around the main footy oval.
The same thing happened during the AFLW game in late October last year, when it rained.
I’m confident that both the AFLW and Dreamtime days were robbed of thousands more fans coming to the game because of seating concerns.
Sunraysia Daily has tried to stay upbeat about the new precinct, but the omission of any seating around premier oval in the first $32.9 million stage of the build simply beggars belief.
Don’t get me started on the seating problems inside the stadium. That’s a whole other problem in trying to attract big basketball games.
The fact that Mildura Basketball Association’s top brass opted to play its Big V Heat games this year at a rundown, five-decade-old stadium instead of MSP is quite telling.
The seating problem goes back to the start of the project.
How did it not occur to the out-of-town consultants that it does actually rain in Mildura, not to mention the extreme heat in summer, when cricket takes place?
Did they expect the elderly, along with general punters, to just put up with the elements and not complain for a few years because MSP was still a work in progress?
I have spoken at length with the precinct’s main user groups, and I have a good idea of where these planning failures have stemmed from.
If the council had consulted much better with the football and netball tenant, South Mildura Sporting Club, and the MBA, many of these problems could have been avoided.
And not only with the future user groups. It would have only taken stadium-sporting precinct site visits to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Gippsland to see what works and what doesn’t.
It’s meant there’s now a waste of ratepayers’ money while planning mistakes are being fixed.
Construction of a terraced area with about 200 seats between the stadium and the premier oval is underway.
But sources say the promise of it being finished early in the SFNL season, which begins this weekend, looks bleak.
A source says the latest estimate of completion is now August due to earthworks issues.
The seating issue was a big talking point at the Dreamtime at the P on Saturday.
Millewa footy co-coach Luke Hubble didn’t hold back in his post-match comments after the clash with Mallee Tigers.
“It would have been great to see a big marquee up on the main hill,” he said.
“It’s disappointing because the long-range forecast showed was going to be a fair bit of rain for the Dreamtime day.
“It wouldn’t have been hard to organise a big marquee for spectators instead of three $60 gazebos where everybody was trying to huddle under.
“We were actually making a bit of a joke about $46 million only getting you three $60 gazebos.
“We’ve had a really good opportunity to build a top-notch facility, but I think we’ve missed the mark a bit.”
The council was contacted for comment yesterday, but there was no response by deadline.
