Anyone in Campbelltown who thinks the Billabong project took too long to complete and cost millions more than the original budget hasn’t seriously paid attention to the saga of the sport centre of excellence.
Campbelltown Council first proposed the sport centre back in 2015.
Local federal MP Russell Matheson, a keen supporter, secured a commitment for more than $7 million from the federal government during the 2016 election campaign.
Ten years later, several design changes, and a new site, no work has yet started on the Campbelltown centre of health and sport excellence.
It is now mooted to cost around more than $35 million and be built on the northern end of Campbelltown Sports Stadium.
Almost half the money – $17 million – will come from the state government’s Westinvest program (now called NSW infrastructure grants).
At the last council meeting of 2024, councillors were presented with a report which asked them to approve a $10 million allocation for the project from council’s infrastructure reserve.
Why? Because the federal government has finally cancelled the 2016 commitment of $7 million.
Council applied for another extension of time 12 months earlier, but it was rejected.
So, just like for the Billabong, where council had to dip into its infrastructure reserve for $8 million to pay for drainage, the same has happened for the sport centre of excellence.
That means over the next few years council will need to repay a total of $18 million it “borrowed’’ from the reserve.
Council has not spelled out where and what services will be affected during that period.
It says it will continue to apply for federal funding to make up for the loss of the $7.2 million Russell Matheson grant.
And it has also committed to repaying any of the $10 million from the infrastructure reserve it requires for the project over five years.
As for the Campbelltown sport and health centre of excellence, if it all goes well, it could be open in the first quarter of 2027, according to the council report tabled at the December meeting.
That’s 12 years from start to finish, while the Billabong took just six short years to complete.