Club plea for rooms

A lack of facilities at Rhonda Scarrott Oval has reached boiling point for the Secret Harbour Dockers Football Club.

The club, which was founded in 2004, now boasts 660 active players, with no clubrooms to support them.

Senior coach Mark Pink said it was high time the club was given approval by the City of Rockingham to use temporary clubrooms.

“I just find it staggering that we don’t have a clubhouse to sit in after we have played a game or after training,” he said.

“We have bought a 12m by 6m demountable as a temporary solution — the club paid $40,000 to $50,000 out of our own money — and it has been sitting in a car park for nearly 18 months,” he said.

Rockingham Mayor Barry Sammels said the City was aware of the club’s clubhouse concerns.

“Ongoing consultation and planning has been addressing this need,” he said.

“As an interim measure the SHDFC submitted a planning permit application for a demountable structure to be installed to act as clubrooms.

“The City was unable to approve the planning permit for the demountable building until the State approved the installation of the structure and its use on the land, which we received late last week.”

With so many hurdles to jump through, Mr Pink feared if the demountable was not approved soon, the club would lose valuable players.

“The effect it is having now is that a lot of people are getting frustrated,” he said.

“We are struggling to keep our good footballers because they want to go to a club with better facilities — it is just a long battle.

“We just want the signature, we just want to be told we can put the demountable there, we have waited three years, we have sat in the rain, after training, after games, we don’t have any shelter — how do you build camaraderie and team spirit without clubrooms?”

Cr Sammels said the City had conducted a public consultation in June last year on the installation of the demountable building, which received three objections.

He said the demountable was hoped to be voted on by council in the next few months.