There is much talk about the capacity of the newly revamped stadium, but no disclosures about how the 11,000 people are to get there and then get home. On the Ballarat City Council plan, there is some indication of parking bays. At the moment, this area is grey metal with no significant levelling, and no indication of individual parking spots. Are there plans and finances to seal the area and construct parking bays? The six areas indicated on the plan would not be adequate. On a Sunday morning, when the area is used for Trash and Trivia Market, there are cars parked anywhere they can fit, regardless of other road users and regardless of parking regulations. What numbers attend Trash and Trivia? I suspect far less than the projected numbers expected to attend an AFL match.

There is the hope the majority of spectators will use public transport, perhaps train and then bus. This again creates difficulties due to the frequency of the service of the two nearby bus services; there are six Creswick services from the railway station on a Saturday afternoon and two on a Sunday. As the people of Ballarat know, there are very few bus services at night. Would there be adequate trains with sufficient numbers of carriages to transport the people?

These questions need to be answered well before any matches take place, and as the first match is planned for 2017, we hope the plans are well advanced.

Joyce Currie, Wendouree

This is a letter from a man who was a city councillor for eighteen years, and twice Mayor of the City. I am disappointed to read the Council's new C.E.O. has a priority to block a rate cap. I would be happier to see how she could achieve more with less, especially as we are highly-rated now, and I know of Melbourne home owners who pay similar rates on homes that are valued double ours. The council is getting around $2000 per year rates on every new home, and the home buyer is paying all the development costs on those homes.

The Council has received high rate increases for no effort from this source. So they will get two rate rises, one from the developer's work, and the other when they set next year's rates.

The Council proposed cap is set on the official inflation figure of 2.4%, but many of our ratepayers who worked hard to put their retirement funds into banks term deposits, have had their annual income cut by 40 to 50 percent over the past few years. The banks who gave low rate home loans do so at the expense of self funded retirees. You will have a lot of grumpy senior citizens on things like high rates and overseas holidays for councillors combined with rates spent on giving Melbourne sporting clubs top facilities. 

Don Woodward, Brown Hill

I am always puzzled by the talk of demolishing Civic Hall. Demolish it and the land that it stands on immediately reverts back to the State Government as I understand it, so we would pay demolition costs then end up with nothing but an empty site that is no longer in Ballarat's control.

The recent Harmony Day events held in the Mining Exchange is a perfect indication that Ballarat currently has no suitable venue for large events. Despite heroic efforts by the Ballarat Italian Association and others, it was hampered by unsuitable design and impossible acoustics. A simple commentary on a demonstration of pasta-making could not be heard, a demonstration of tomato salsa-making had to be held in a cramped little cubicle designed for selling gold, a display of Italian heritage items had to be held in another gold cubicle barely large enough for six people to move in. These events could have been wonderful in the Civic Hall with its magnificent under-cover space. 

Gwendoline Blake, Ballarat