Council bowled up a curly one

By Alison Noonan
A CRANBOURNE man’s dream to develop a worldclass lawn bowls and recreation club in Casey is at loggerheads with council plans for the site.
Councillors believe Ron Halligan’s vision of a stateoftheart bowling facility will clash with the multimilliondollar social club already planned for Cranbourne East’s premier sporting venue Casey Fields.
Both proposals include more pokie machines for Cranbourne.Council officers moved at Tuesday night’s Planning Committee meeting to accept an application from VFL club the Casey Scorpions to become the sole manager of the council backed sports club.
‘The Club’, as it will be known, will contain 95 electronic machines and is set to be the major revenue raiser for user groups and council.
Mr Halligan said his proposal to develop a combined modern internationally recognised bowls and recreation club would also rely on pokies to generate profits, but could be married with council’s venue.
“We could attach the social club to the bowling facility.
“You need entertainment facilities to bring the bowling club up to international standards, which is an ever safer bet to generate income to council,” he said.
Mr Halligan, a member of Cranbourne RSL Bowls Club, said the development would be the first of its kind in Victoria and create a whole new era of bowling.
“I want to develop a brand new club complemented by a range of additional facilities, including entertainment, gymnasium, retail outlets and restaurants.
“This development, designed along the lines of those at Tweed Heads and Warilla, would attract tourism to Casey, encourage employment and become the major focal point of Casey Fields,” he said.
Mr Halligan said the facility would provide a constant source of income by attracting visitors to the site both day and night, 365 days a year.
“The old days of having a bowls club just for retirees and pensioners limits the ability to grow and expand.
“This facility would be so vastly superior to anything else around the district and the high degree of technical engineering would attract interstate and international bowlers.”
It would be self funding without cost to the council or rate payers. It would attract high profile sponsors and maximise profitability entirely for the complex,” he said.
Balla Balla Ward councillor Colin Butler said many councillors were wary of council having to fund the bowling club, claiming it had already spent too much money on its proposed social club to turn back. “If the bowling side could be combined with the social club that would be the way to go. Council is already a fair way down the track with its social club and it needs the pokies there to sustain the whole thing,” he said.
However Cr Butler said he had concerns about plans for the Scorpions to take over management of the social club, claiming he was sceptical that the VFL club could generate sufficient profits to repay its debt to council.
Mayfield Ward councillor Kevin Bradford said he also held concerns about council’s proposal for the social club, questioning what deal council officers had done with the Scorpions to entice them to Casey Fields.
“A lot of questions need to be asked. There are certain aspects that are being rushed through and I want to see all the plans first before we approve anything,” he said.
Councillors agreed to defer the decision to grant a planning permit to the Scorpions to next week’s council meeting.