Improving Community Facilities
Whyalla City Council is ramping up its focus on encouraging new development and investment within the city, aiming to increase accommodation opportunities that help attract more exciting events and improve community facilities across Whyalla.
Improvement in facilities and amenities within the city will be critical to enable increased event and tourism opportunities that are currently limited by a lack of facilities. Recent major project announcements also confirm that new large-scale accommodation opportunities will be required soon to cater for the influx of people needed to build and operate these major projects in and around Whyalla.
In terms of existing facilities, many local groups are currently struggling to keep their head above water due to rising costs and decreasing membership and usage; while Council also does not have the financial capacity to maintain and upgrade all of its existing buildings, many of which are towards ‘end of life’.
Council has therefore looked at consolidating some of its assets for some time to focus on multi-user facilities, while positioning key sites to be ready for future development that will benefit the entire community.
One of the first sites identified as key to this process is the land occupied by Westland United Soccer and Social Club, currently under lease until March 2024, with a non-renewal clause which Council plans to enact. This land was revoked from being community land in 2009 and rezoned in 2012 following community and landholder consultation, with the site considered of strategic economic development value for Whyalla’s future accommodation and tourism needs.
Mayor Phill Stone said Council would work with Westland United to find the best outcome for the Club, for ratepayers and for the entire city.
“Our focus is to enable the Club to operate from a location that gives them access to newer facilities and helps them become more sustainable, while at the same time look at alternate uses for the existing foreshore site,” Mayor Stone said.
“We appreciate this will be a significant challenge for the Club, however every community group having their own facility is unfortunately becoming a thing of the past, so we will work together to explore alternate multi-user options.”
Mayor Stone said the area leased by the Club was identified by the community during the Whyalla Beach and Foreshore Master Plan process as ideally located for accommodation development. As such, the current use of the site is not the best use of this land.
“These once-in-a-generation projects offer an opportunity to develop ideally positioned sites to deliver long-term benefits for our city, be it accommodation, recreational or tourism facilities,” he said.
“New investment in the city will also provide major flow-on benefits for existing local businesses, organisations and the entire community. This is about putting the needs of the city and its economy first, while still finding suitable outcomes for a community group.”
Conversations with the Club have commenced and will continue over coming weeks to determine both interim and longer-term options.