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Dear General Manager,
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Putting to one side the various enthusiasms sections of the City of Launceston's constituency has for Australian Rules Football – AKA Footy – the notion that a 'playing surface' might require $3Million PLUS spending on it stretches the imagination somewhat. That the expenditure simply appears in the budget without any apparent open debate is more than a little concerning.
The word out there in 'Footy Land' is that the surface, one is led to assume, is at risk becoming "unplayable" but what about all those games played north of the Murray where the 'mudlarks' have a strategic advantage over the 'wusses from down south'. However that 'vernacular' comes from a time before 'AFL Footy' aspired to be 'the national game'.
With this in mind it seems that what needs to be protected at York Park is the relative 'dryness' on the playing surface for a couple of footy games a year. It turns out Launceston, on average, is a pretty dry place. For instance the city's wettest day on record was in January 2016 when 88mm of rain fell on the city with August being the wettest month and the highest recorded rainfall in August was 212mm in 2005. The previous wettest day only yielded 75mm sometime in the 1970s.
This all simply points to the fact that the risk of wetness in Launceston is relatively low making it a place where 'the most' is, relatively speaking, not very much at all – all said and done.
So, what is the risk here? How best can the risk be managed? Indeed, is the expenditure of 'something over $100 a rateable property' in the city justifiable? Indeed, what dividend cum cost benefit would such expenditure deliver to Launceston constituents?
In attempting to answer those questions it might be useful to consider an alternative way forward and in doing so garner some truly 'expert advice' from someone such as the curator of an equivalent playing field and/or a person who has access to the now internationally famous SUPER SOPPER.
This alternative approach, and potentially others too, raises a quite different set of questions. Has this investigation been done and if not why not? If the investigation has been done why hasn't its outcomes been made public? Is there an appetite to fully explore a cost effective alternative to the current proposed course of action? If so, when and how will it be done? If not why not?
Launceston's residents and ratepayers look forward to your response with growing interest in regard to this and other matters emerging from the 2019 – 2020 City of Launceston Budget.
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