PERSISTENCE and passion were vital but it was community backing and belief that finally helped achieve this stadium goal.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Ballarat Sports and Events Centre won a $10 million federal grant on July 31, more than 10 years after Basketball Ballarat identified a chronic court shortage in the region.
But this was about more than basketball.
This was a project to help drive Ballarat major events and conferences with the flexibility to share lecture theatre and court space for grassroots adult education like University of the Third Age.
This was a project to help develop indoor sports across the region, including netball and badminton, from beginners to elite training bases and administrative hubs.
An indoor sports collective, working closely with City of Ballarat, fine-tuned their vision by mid-2013 and could have settled a year later with a combined $14 million from state government and council funds to complete stage one.
The difference? Two more courts and a 3000-seat showcourt to ease court pressure and help bring Ballarat in line and to compete with neighbouring regional and suburban stadiums.
Three times the BSEC project was narrowly knocked back under the National Stronger Region Fund.
The community continued to rally and collectively made a huge impact.
Basketball Ballarat chief executive officer Peter Eddy said such a range of people sharing their stories, and the importance a fully developed stadium could have on their lives, helped keep the project at the forefront of public consciousness for such a sustained period.
“By sharing these stories the broader community added its support to calls for the project to be fully funded,” Mr Eddy said. “It’s times like these that proves the value of regional news services that care about their community.
“...The broad positive support the announcement has had from all sections of the community and region has been most rewarding.”