By Shelby Brooks
A petition to improve 87-year-old facilities at the Officer Tennis Club is being considered by Cardinia Shire councillors.
Councillor Tammy Radford said the pavilion was built in 1935 and only offers one female and one male toilet, with no change facilities or showers.
“It currently does not provide a safe, accessible and welcoming place for the LGBTQI+ community, people with disability, the aging community, the CALD community or anyone in the community in general,” she said.
“This is a council asset and the Officer Tennis Club does not have the funding capacity to complete the works it so desperately requires.”
Cr Radford has been the club’s lead advocate, describing the current facilities as being of a “poor standard”.
“The female toilet doesn’t even lock, which isn’t safe,” she said.
Cr Radford also spoke of club member and wheelchair user Sammy Rolph, who plays wheelchair tennis.
“In speaking with me, she told me she just wants to access the clubrooms which she can’t currently do, the bathroom and change facility,” Cr Radford said.
“She would like to see more opportunities for people with a disability to participate in sports in the outer suburbs of Melbourne.”
In the past, Cr Radford said the club had been offered a temporary fix with a modular unit option for an accessible toilet.
She said the club had rejected that as they feared it would mean they wouldn’t be eligible for a full upgrade of the facilities.
“Their overall aim is to see this facility upgraded for all users, not just those with a disability,” Cr Radford said.
The petition with 98 signatures was presented to Cardinia Shire Council in May, asking for support from the shire to upgrade paths of travel, pavilion accessibility, including construction of an accessible toilet, disabled car parking bays and suitable change facilities for females.
At the council meeting held on Monday 18 July, councillors unanimously supported a building conditions audit to take place to determine the priority of the upgrade works in the future.
As a past player at the club, Cr Brett Owen also expressed his support of an upgrade to facilities.
“Officer is our second largest town in Cardinia and we’ve got this old facility; no doubt it’s in need of an upgrade,“ Cr Owen said.
“I do look forward to the results of the audit which will feed into budget decision-making in the future and other grant opportunities through State and Federal Governments, and so we can prioritise what’s most important, what’s most needed for upgraded facilities in the shire.”
Officer Tennis Club president Michelle Pitcher was grateful for Cr Radford’s advocacy for the club so far but was left feeling confused.
“Tammy has been a great support and absolutely amazing for our club,” Ms Pitcher said.
“After listening intently to the meeting, I am pleased the councillors unanimously voted to support the petition and agreed the facilities are long overdue for upgrades to make them accessible, but I’m just not sure how and when that’s going to happen.
“I am actually rather confused with where we are at in the process and what more we can do to advocate for this.”
Ms Pitcher said the upgrade was well overdue.
“We’re in the fastest growing area in the shire so I don’t understand what the hesitancy is. We need clarity,” she said.
“We have been advocating for this for years.”
La Trobe Labor candidate Abi Kumar, along with Ballarat MP and then Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Catherine King, visited Pakenham on Thursday 27 January to promise $736,000 in funding for the Officer Tennis Club and the Toomuc Reserve pavilion should Labor win the Federal election.
