24 February, 2022
Nobby Recreation Ground future in doubt
The future of the Nobby Recreation Ground is in the balance with a public meeting called for this week to see if the town’s residents care enough to warrant the ground’s retention.
The meeting will be held at the Nobby School of Arts on Thursday night, 3rd March at 7pm.
It follows an earlier meeting at the local pub, which was attended by between 20 and 30 people.
That meeting was convened by the Nobby Cricket and Recreation Club with well known local identity Mick Comerford, who chaired the gathering, giving an outline of the ground’s history.
It was a multi-purpose recreation ground with a cricket ground, tennis courts, football ground and a running track.
The ground has been predominantly used as the home ground for the Nobby Cricket team.
Mr Comerford explained that the Nobby Cricket and Recreation Club was granted trusteeship of the ground from the State Government in 1996 when the Clifton Shire Council saw no objection to the club taking control.
This trusteeship enabled the Nobby Cricket and Recreation Club to apply for grants.
A couple of these grant applications were successful which enabled the building of an amenities shed with toilets, showers and change rooms.
Another successful grant application enabled the installation of an underground watering system with pop-up sprinklers.
Unfortunately, the drought intervened, and the club could never establish grass as access to water was never possible.
In recent years, the Nobby Cricket team has been forced to play its home matches at the Hodgsonvale Community Sports Club ground as the Nobby ground was deemed unsafe for play.
The committee of the Nobby Cricket and Recreation Club called the last meeting to establish community feeling for what should be done with the local ground.
Questions raised include:
Should the Club hand back control of the ground to the State Government?
Are there interested persons who would like to see some type of commercial development of the ground?
Is there any community support to re-establish the recreation ground as a community space for the whole of Nobby to utilise?
Dominic Doyle, from the Toowoomba Regional Council, spoke to the meeting.
Mr Doyle’s role with the Council includes planning and implementing the strategic direction for the Parks and Recreation Services Branch.
He explained that, should the Nobby Cricket and Recreation Club hand back the grounds to the Queensland Government, the State Government would likely offer the responsibility of control to the local council.
What the Toowoomba Regional Council would then do with the ground is uncertain.
Mr Doyle explained that the Council works with 10 to 20 years of forward planning goals with regards to recreation areas within the Region.
At this stage the Nobby Recreation Ground is not listed for any future planning initiatives.
Various local residents put forward ideas at the meeting.
The tone of the meeting revealed that there is keen-ness to re-establish the tennis courts, with a couple of local tradies offering their services to assist with construction.
Quite a few people, expressed the desire that the Nobby Recreation Ground would be a great place to hold community events, especially as last year’s Christmas event had to be cancelled due to water-logging of the usual venue, the local park.
Other attendees at the meeting stated that there is nothing for the young people of Nobby to do and it would be great if an area such as the Recreation Reserve could be developed.
It is hoped that there will be a strong turnout of Nobby and district residents at next week’s meeting.
All interested persons are welcome to attend.
