By Callum Ludwig
The Wesburn Junior Football Club has called on Yarra Ranges Council to help fund upgrades to their facilities at the Tuesday 23 April council meeting.
Wesburn is the only standalone junior club in the AFL Outer East competition, with players usually splitting off between playing for Warburton-Millgrove, Yarra Junction, Powelltown and Woori Yallock for senior competition.
Wesburn JFC President Wayne Morgan attended the council meeting to make a submission and said currently has 230 children registered on their list which is a record number for the club.
“The club has 10 teams, three of those teams which are standalone girls and we have our new inaugural women’s team which is affiliated with the Warburton Senior Club, but at Wesburn we have inadequate facilities that don’t meet the child safety regulations and standards that are required in today’s modern times,” he said.
“I just feel that our club is sometimes disrespected in the way that we’re just a standalone junior club, we don’t have income, we don’t have seniors playing there and to me, it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth for our young children, boys and girls, that we’re just at the end of the Valley no one really cares about.”
The club is seeking to remedy a number of concerns with their facilities including a lack of disabled-access toilets, girls and boys having to use the same change rooms and toilets, the outdated canteen, the lack of any room to hold a club function to help fundraise and the lack of lighting for the bottom oval.
Mr Morgan said for the girls to wash their hands, they’re standing three feet from the urinals that the boys use.
“We rely solely on the canteen as our only passive income other than the small amounts of sponsorship we receive from some of the local companies and businesses around town,” he said.
“We’re unable to host functions to raise any funds to help pay our bills, we don’t have lights on the bottom oval to train so we are now training over four nights of the week and therefore our electricity bill is expected to double from last year, we’re looking at around at least $5,000 just on electricity bills,”
“We understand that it’s going to be a build for the whole park, the SES, possibly the horse group and the mountain biking track that’s planned for the future down there as well, we don’t need a fancy $8 million building however we wouldn’t mind just a second story built onto our rooms to host functions cause as it is its just two change rooms and an outdated canteen.”
In the Wesburn Park Masterplan that was approved by councillors in December 2022, the plan approved three items that will directly benefit the Wesburn Junior Football Club; the $8,863,000 ‘Community, Recreation and Education Centre’ which was indicated the club could use, $100,000 for a shade structure between the ovals and an $800,000 upgrade to the playing surface of the main oval and the oval’s fencing.
Mr Morgan said his own daughter even quit football because she didn’t like having to into the change rooms to use the toilet and wash her hands.
“We were promised new portables at the end of season 2023 that were going to come from Powelltown Football Club, then we’re told we’ll have them before Round One of this year and now we’re told in an email from the Council last night that we’re expecting the portables to be delivered around end of May, almost halfway through the year” he said.
“If I was told at the beginning that several clubs were in front of us, which I wasn’t, I would’ve been happy and I could sell that to our fans but right now we’ve got a lot of unhappy parents and in particular unhappy mothers at the lack of a solution for their girls and I don’t blame them.”
In the Wesburn Park Masterplan, all the upgrades servicing the Wesburn Junior Football Club were anticipated to be delivered within a five to 10 year timeframe.
O’Shannassy Ward Councillor Jim Child spoke to the submission and said he goes back 43 years so the clubrooms were built to when it was just a boys club and it’s certainly past its used-by date.
“I want to get it out in the public realm, where we stand as far as the asset renewal of that building there and more importantly it’s the commitment that we have to have those appropriate facilities there for young girls, I just can’t believe that we still haven’t got that facility there,” he said.
Councillors Fiona McAllister and Tim Heenan also spoke, showing support for the need for a short-term solution such as the relocation of the temporary change room portables from Powelltown and share a comparison to similar concerns previously held at the Mount Evelyn Football Netball Club.
Manager of Recreation, Projects and Parks at Yarra Ranges Council Phil Murton said the Wesburn pavilion features in the Council’s top four of advocacy asks to other levels of government.
“It’s a live project that we’re seeking external funding for to help complement what Council may be able to contribute to it,” he said.
“There were, unfortunately, some delays in getting the Powelltown pavilion to occupancy level, which is why there were some delays in getting the temporary change rooms off-site, but that’s expected to be delivered shortly, but it does need to get plumbed electricity and a whole lot of services attached to it, which is why we’re expecting that in the next few weeks, by the end of May, that will be operational,”
“Happy to get our facilities maintenance team to work with the club on some minor amendments to the canteen so it may be able to function more suitably.”
Options for the club to access grants for a solar and battery solution to help with electricity costs and access the Council’s Small Grants program to upgrade the canteen were also touted.
