By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A gold-winning table tennis association has been left “disappointed” after Greater Dandenong Council scrapped a proposed $9.1-million regional facility.
Baulking at the cost, Greater Dandenong councillors narrowly voted down plans to start $440,000 detailed design work for the facility at Springers Leisure Centre in Keysborough.
The centre was to be the new home of Greater Dandenong Table Tennis Association – which is near capacity at its 40-year-old facility at JC Mills Reserve, Dandenong.
Its current base is set to make way for the council’s $82.3 million Dandenong Oasis aquatic and wellbeing centre.
The GDTTA venue has hosted a long lineage of international players.
They include 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Qian Yang and Dandenong’s underage national champ Connie Psihogios, who was selected to try-out for Australia’s 2020 Olympic team at age 11.
It runs a junior academy, high-performance programs, blind table tennis, tournaments and weekly competitions.
In a statement, the GDTTA responded: “Whilst our club is disappointed with the council voting against our replacement stadium, the club remains hopeful that we can continue to work constructively with council to achieve a replacement centre which is suitable for the club’s current and future needs.
“(We hope) we can continue to provide a facility that has many health and other benefits for our vibrant and inclusive table tennis community.”
After a feasibility study, council officers recommended a new 24-table centre equipped for international tournament standards.
The study found “strong demand” for a regional facility, with GDTTA membership numbers forecasted to grow from 300 to more than 600 at the new centre.
It estimated more than 94,000 visits a year including school use, casual hire and tournaments, generating $6.44 million over the next 10 years.
In opposition, mayor Jim Memeti told Star Journal that the council was already building enough regional facilities, such as the new Oasis and the $110 million Dandenong Sports and Events Centre.
He expected the project cost would blow out to up to $12 million by the time it was built.
“Do we need to be carrying the region with everything we do?
“Consider how many are using the centre, and if we’d get bang for our buck – maybe we should look for the council officers to bring back something smaller.”
Councillor Tim Dark said the council was “substantially rate-capped”, had posted only a small surplus and was committed to other large projects such as the Keysborough South Community Hub.
He argued it was “fairyland stuff” for the council to “throw” $440,000 at a project and hope the state and federal funding would follow.
With less than 100 of the GDTTA’s membership living in Grater Dandenong, there were many other sports clubs that could do with the funding, Cr Dark said.
“It is fundamentally bad, bad, bad policy, a bad framework and a very bad project.”
Cr Rhonda Garad, supported the concept of replacing the Mills Reserve centre, but on a smaller non-regional scale.
Spending on the $9.1 million centre equated to about $30,000 per member – an “outrageous sum of money” on a “very small group of people”.
In favour, councillor Sean O’Reilly said the detailed design work was required to help attract state and federal funding for the building, so it wasn’t funded solely by the council.
“This group has been extremely patient, extremely successful … I don’t think it’s much for them to at least ask Council to progress this rather than nipping it in the bud.
“If we’re going to talk about per-head spend … let’s run a rule over Dandenong basketball stadium, let’s run a rule over other sports.
“You can’t say that table tennis is not as important. We have to give it a fair chance to attract other funding.”
When voted down, the possibility of a regional facility “won’t see the light of day”.
Table Tennis Victoria chief executive Gen Dohrmann said the proposed regional table tennis facility was of “great importance … to replace the home that the Greater Dandenong Table Tennis Association currently have that will be demolished”.
“We will work with both the association, the local Council and the State Government to ensure there is a plan for the future for one of our biggest associations in Victoria.”
