By Micah Edmeades
Seville basketball players are hoping council will consider adding a local court to the town with many finding themselves driving to other towns to play.
Seville does possess a water play park and a recreation reserve however, residents would like to see further improvements to support more sports.
In 2020, the Yarra Ranges council announced several new features to be added to the Seville Recreation Reserve, but little has been done in two pandemic riddled years.
One of the obvious needs is a basketball court with local resident Cooper, who has been playing basketball for nearly 7 years, making the journey to Kilsyth to casually shoot at a court.
“It’s 15-20 minutes away from my house,” he explained.
“I can’t even walk down to a basketball court if I just want to shoot hoops.”
A basketball court at the Seville Recreation Reserve would be logical considering the reserve’s other facilities and its location near the main township.
With fuel prices going through the roof and the price of casual shooting at local courts going up, inconvenience is at an all time high.
“I could just walk down and it would be much easier,” Cooper said.
Director Environment and Infrastructure, Mark Varmalis said council is keeping in constant close contact with local sporting clubs and has made inroads into the Seville Recreation Reserve Master Plan, developed in March 2020.
“Unfortunately the development of that plan coincided with the beginning of the pandemic, however despite this and the storm impacts from last year, we’ve managed to get some of these projects either completed or underway,” Mr Varmalis said.
This year, council has installed a new netball court with LED lighting at the Reserve, new stalls and wash areas for the Pony Club, while the redevelopment of the number one oval is also currently underway and is due for completion in April next year.
“This is in addition to works completed in 2019, such as new netball changerooms and toilets in the water play area and an upgrade of the tennis facilities, which included a new synthetic surface, LED lighting, fencing and landscaping,” he said.
“The financial impacts of the pandemic and storm have no doubt restricted our ability to deliver some of the other projects as quickly as we’d like, but we’ll continue to make progress with the Master Plan and push for funding from relevant state and federal government programs when they arise to assist.”
