A gay and lesbian basketball club has hit out at Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore after the City of Sydney abandoned a plan to build a new indoor stadium in Alexandria last month.
In 2011 the City of Sydney promised to demolish the existing two-court facility at Perry Park and build a new $35 million indoors sports and recreational facility, complete with six multi-purpose indoor courts and vastly improved facilities. Officials from the City of Sydney Comets, another basketball team that uses the existing courts, were told by Council representatives that the project was being suspended indefinitely in May.
“At the moment demand exceeds availability and existing community groups compete for limited facilities in local school halls or are forced to travel outside the area,” Moore said in 2011.
The Perry Park facility serves as the home court for the Sydney Spectres Gay and Lesbian Basketball Club, a group that started in 2001 to promote social fitness and competition among LGBTI people and has since grown to field nine teams in a number of divisions.
Basketball Australia CEO and former Labor Premier Kristina Keneally protested the decision at a Council Finance Committee meeting on Monday alongside Cassandra, a trans representative of the Spectres.
“Clover Moore hopes no one will notice that she has ditched an iron-clad, written commitment given in 2011 to build a new recreational facility. Let me assure the Lord Mayor that the 2000 members of the City of Sydney Comets Basketball Association notice, that Basketball New South Wales notices, and that Basketball Australia notices – and we are going to make sure as many people as possible are aware of this broken promise,” Keneally said.
The City of Sydney Basketball Association has started an online petition urging Council to reinstate funding for the new facility.
