We’re for the course move, say golfers

By Paul Dunlop
CLAIMS the “community” is against the sale of Pakenham Golf Course have been rejected by golfers.
Golf club members reacted angrily last week to assertions that the sale and relocation of the golf course was strongly opposed by residents.
The Cardinia Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association (CRRA) and some councillors have argued the proposal contains major flaws and flies in the face of public opinion.
Pakenham Golf Club manager Pat Keane said the club – of which most of its members are ratepayers and live in the area – had overwhelmingly voted in support of the proposal.
He said at least 400 members recently signed a petition calling on the council to support the move to sell the course and relocate the golf club to a new purpose-built location in McGregor Road.
Mr Keane also challenged the notion that the sale and relocation of the course would deprive people of valuable open space.
He said the club was off limits to non-members and anybody treating the course as a public place to walk the dog or fly a kite was technically trespassing.
The council and the community continue to debate the merits of the proposal to sell off the course and allow the development of a 600-lot housing and parkland development on the 91-hectare site in Oaktree Drive.
The council, which stands to make $24 million from the sale, last week voted 4-3 to tell state Planning Minister Rob Hulls it supported the proposal and wanted him to make the planning scheme amendments necessary for it to go ahead.
An attempt to rescind that motion failed at a special meeting on Monday.
The Minister must now decide whether to accept a panel recommendation that the proposal be abandoned or support the view – promoted by Cr Bill Pearson and colleagues – that it could deliver lasting financial benefit to the council and the community.
Mr Keane said continuing uncertainty over the future had hampered the club, which had been on tenterhooks since the proposed move was first announced in 2004.
He said many people in the community wrongly thought the club was about to close.
“Regardless of what happens, we have a lease where we are until 2014,” he said.
“Whatever the decision is we are here and we are open and we will stay here for quite a few years at the very least.”
Mr Keane said drainage and other problems at the 18-hole course would cost millions of dollars – which the club did not have – to fix.
“Most of our members realise the future is not here, it’s too much money to spend, we’ll never have it,” he said.
Mr Keane said the course was built by the club using mostly volunteer labour in the 1970s and was inevitably suffering from age.
A new state-of-the-art golf course, professionally designed and built in a more suitable location, would set the club up for decades to come, he said.
CRRA president Gloria O’Connor said the proposal would deliver questionable benefit and a new golf club could cost much more than the estimated $12 million.
“The major question from ratepayers is whether or not it should be a financial responsibility of a local council to provide a golfing facility,” she said.