Cricket Tasmania set to pull up stumps from Bellerive Oval – but cricket won't go straight to the new stadium - video Dailymotion

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Cricket Tasmania won’t commit to allowing major fixtures to be played at a new Macquarie Point stadium, unless it can successfully relocate its operations away from Bellerive Oval. Cricket’s biggest fixtures are slated to be moved from Bellerive to Mac Point if the new stadium is built, which would potentially make Bellerive unviable and open the door for cricket Tasmania to seek a brand-new home.

Transcript

00:00 It's cricket's big pitch, a move away from Bell Reef Oval to a brand new home to call

00:07 its own.

00:08 If we want to have a sustainable Cricket Tasmania and a competitive Cricket Tasmania, we've

00:14 got to have a facility that at least matches the facilities of those who we compete against.

00:20 Cricket Tasmania will canvas all state election candidates for support in moving away from

00:24 Bell Reef to a new facility. The organisation believes it's outgrown the arena it's called

00:30 home since the 1970s and wants to use funds from the sale of Bell Reef's buildings to

00:36 partially fund a new build.

00:39 We had one male team with 20 male athletes in it. Now we've got 55 professional athletes,

00:44 we've got a pathway with 200 kids in it and quite simply Blunston is unable to cope with

00:50 that load.

00:51 It has some leverage too, with high drawing fixtures slated to be shifted to a new Mac

00:56 Point stadium, Bell Reef could become unviable. Cricket Tasmania owns and operates the arena

01:03 and it won't allow a content shift without a commitment towards a new facility.

01:08 Our position there is if there's not a runway for us to leave Blunston Arena from a high

01:15 performance centre perspective into the future, we will not be shifting any product across

01:19 anywhere.

01:20 It's not ideal for a high performance program to be based at a stadium like they are, it's

01:25 certainly not best practice when you look around the country.

01:27 Labor says it too will discuss the proposal with Cricket Tasmania. What becomes of Bell

01:33 Reef should cricket vacate and a new stadium is built is unclear. VFL football could return

01:40 or something else entirely.

01:42 That is just one idea for what we could be doing with Blunston, I've got some other ideas

01:47 as well that I've talked to some people about.

01:49 A transition to a new facility, most likely on Hobart's eastern shore, won't happen

01:54 tomorrow, but rather across the next five to ten years.

01:57 [no audio]

Cricket Tasmania set to pull up stumps from Bellerive Oval – but cricket won't go straight to the new stadium

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