Thomastown Bears put heat on council
Mark Smith
08Jul08
The Thomastown Bears and a cricket club have had to pay for their own heating and cooling.
TWO Thomastown sporting clubs have had to buy split-system heating and cooling systems for their clubrooms after Whittlesea Council failed to provide the basic necessities during a $658,000 upgrade of their pavilion.
Thomastown Football Club has been forced to endure two winters in freezing conditions after the council stripped the club of its heating during major refurbishment works in 2006.
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The project at the Main St Reserve included new changerooms, an umpires' room and upgrades to toilets, storage, office and kitchen spaces but didn't include basic heating or cooling.
The rooms are shared by the football club and Camrea Taipans Cricket Club and used for training, matches and social events.
To make matters worse, two wall heaters owned by the clubs and installed by them before renovations were removed during the works but never refitted or replaced.
Flood lights atop the pavilion also disappeared.
No explanation to their removal, or any offer to replace them, was given to the clubs.
Thomastown Football Club secretary Mark Plowright said the clubs had raised $4000 from club raffles and sponsorship deals for two split-system units.
"It would have been nice if council chipped in at the start and got things done," he said.
"We were one of the first to get the upgrade done. You see what other clubs have now compared to what we got, and we seemed to have missed out on a few things."
In an emailed statement, council infrastructure and technology director Neill Hocking said the heaters were thrown away because they were "old" and "not suitable for refitting".
He said they had not been replaced because the upgrade had been done under an old design standard which didn't include heating.
Mr Plowright said the council knew the pavilion was used for a winter sport and he could not understand why the council could not budget for a "couple of wall heaters" in such a major upgrade.
He revealed the club had been fighting with the council for two years to have heating reinstalled, but was getting nowhere.
"We just had ours ripped out and they didn't put anything else back in," he said.
Mr Hocking said all new pavilions and major upgrades were now fitted with heaters and that pavilions refurbished under the old standard would be reviewed.
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