Hockey club gets the boot

Donnybrook Ladies Hockey Club has been given its marching orders as the council moves forward with a BMX track before full funding has been secured for the hockey players’ replacement clubhouse. At a special council meeting on Monday night, Donnybrook-Balingup Shire councillors unanimously agreed upon a tender for the $467,000 pump track development at VC Mitchell Park. The hockey club has been offered a new pitch and clubrooms once the council completes a $15 million refurbishment project. However, only $9 million has been secured so far in funding for the upgrade project, leaving clubs such as the Donnybrook Ladies Hockey Club unsure of their future. Donnybrook-Balingup Ratepayers and Residents Association president Brad Fowler has been a vocal opposer of the pump track, claming “data manipulation” by the shire in an effort to get the two plans accepted by the community. “The pump track that is being proposed for Donnybrook, this is a proposal being put forward to councillors, essentially it was to force two clubs out of their existing home and force them to a new location,” he said. “They had a public survey for that and only 13 people out of that survey said that (the pump track) should go there ... the data manipulation is amazing. “When council says there is overwhelming support for this track to go on to the hockey and netball location, but only 13 people said that’s where it should go.” A pump track is a track which cyclists, skateboarders, scooter-riders or rollerskaters ride along not by pedalling but by pumping their bodies in rhythm with the layout of the track. The new track has been fully funded by the State Government under a stipulation it is spent by December 31 this year. Shire president Brian Piesse said “there was still work to be done” in trying to get all sporting clubs behind the pump track and VC Mitchell Park precinct projects”. “We are still yet to gather the total support of all the sporting groups that were initially involved in the stakeholder reference group to the proposition,” Cr Piesse said. “There is still some work to be done in terms of what the respective sporting clubs get in terms of the first stage and their commitment to this project.”