Grand chaos

By Bridget Brady and Justin Robertson
FRUSTRATED spectators have lashed out at the scheduling of 20 grand finals at Casey Fields that caused traffic pandemonium on the weekend.
Spectators were forced to wait in their cars on Berwick-Cranbourne Road as more than 10,000 people packed into the sports hub on Sunday for the Dandenong and District Junior Football League grand finals.
The traffic jam spread beyond the roundabout on Clyde Road and some people resorted to entering the facility on foot.
Sharon Barac from the Devon Meadows Junior Football Club said she didn’t bother to battle the traffic chaos.
“I intended to watch a girlfriend’s young boy, but we couldn’t even get in so we turned around and came home,” she said.
“People were parking wherever they could.”
Ms Barac said members of the Devon Meadows Junior Football Club, which host their home games at Casey Fields, had to clean up their first aid kits and other items that had been removed from their club rooms and left out.
“These are things that cost money to replace,” she said.
It was the first time all DDJFL grand finals had been scheduled at one venue, and president Shaun Connell said the league would review the event it co-organised with the council within the next month.
“It was a massive, massive day. Those who were there said they had a wonderful time and in all honesty it was a complete success,” he said.
Mr Connell said a second entrance to Casey Fields would have alleviated the traffic concerns on Sunday.
Casey’s manager of sport and leisure, Richard Amon, said an extra two entrances were planned at Casey Fields in its master plan, but added that these were “long-term” plans that depended on when the development of a proposed residential estate adjacent to Casey Fields would occur.
Mr Amon said the new entrances were planned to be built from the yet-to-be-constructed Casey Fields Boulevard, south of the existing tennis courts and south of the athletics centre that is being built.
“These new entrances, in addition to a planned new signalised intersection on Berwick-Cranbourne Road, will significantly improve traffic flow into and out of the facility to cope with the associated traffic demands of major events,” Mr Amon said.
The council also said extra car parks were being built as part of the athletics facility.