NEW suburbs will mean new football clubs for Ballarat.
Red Onion Ballarat Football League operations manager Aaron Nunn says the league would likely accept a new junior football club from Lucas within five years and perhaps another from the Ballarat region within a decade.
“The (Ballarat) council believes in the next 20 years the population in greater Ballarat will grow from about 115,000 to 150,000,” Nunn said.
“The majority of that growth will be in the Ballarat West growth corridor, which will go from Lucas around to Sebastopol.
“There is a lot of water to go under the bridge. There are no football grounds out there at the moment, no change rooms.
We’re already lobbying the council to make sure football grounds are built out there.”
The council has consulted with real estate agents and developers and major sporting organisations about what needs to happen.
“There is a major plan to build several new sporting precincts, including a major one on the corner of Carngham Road and Dysons Lane.”
Alfredton-based Ballarat has already reached its cap for eight junior teams across four age groups.
Sebastopol also has healthy numbers in all but one age group.
“With an extra 30,000 to 40,000 people in that area the existing clubs are going to struggle to cater for them all,” Nunn said. While some existing clubs are oversubscribed for junior footballers, Golden Point still has vacancies in all age groups except for youth girls football.
Mt Clear still has some places in under-12 and under-14 junior football teams.
Golden Point and Mt Clear’s junior netball teams, however, are all full for this year.