Melville residents call special meeting over $4.68m cricket pitch, council claims no impact on rate increases

Melville council will hold a special electorate meeting after community members asked it to reconsider its approval for the controversial $4.68 million cricket ground at John Connell Reserve.

Under the Local Government Act, the council must hold a meeting within 35 days of receiving a valid petition.

Jason Meotti and Esther Cole, respective meetings of the Bull Creek Leeming Community Action Group and Melville Tree Canopy Advocates, invoked the law when they submitted a petition to the city Tuesday morning.

In less than three weeks, the groups collected 645 signatures, more than double the 300 signatures needed to call for a special meeting.

Mr. Meotti said the groups hope to pass a cancellation motion on the project at the meeting. If the motion is voted on, council members will need to take up the issue at the next regular meeting.

He said the project needed to go through the “proper planning process” with better consultations.

“I urge the mayor to schedule the special selectmen meeting before the regular council meeting in June so taxpayers’ money or staff time is not wasted on a project that fails the pub test,” Mr. Meotti said.

“Our volunteers knocked on the doors of lifelong Leeming residents who had never heard of the proposal, highlighting just how inadequate the community consultation process was.

“We collected more than 650 signatures in less than three weeks. This demonstrates the depth of community concern about this poorly planned and expensive project in the midst of a cost of living crisis.”

The council approved the project in April, allowing Leeming Spartans Cricket Club to clear up to 0.68 hectares of bushland and install a new pitch at John Connell.

The cleanup permit, approved by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, mandated a $1.3 million reforestation project on the nearby Ken Hurst Reserve to offset environmental impacts.

Concerns were raised due to the low planting survival rate at Ken Hurst, which could further increase the costs of the project.

Local residents and community groups expressed disappointment with the development online, deploring the tree clearing and potential rate increases that would be required to fund the project.

Ms Cole said the rapid rate of registration to the petition showed how sensitive the community was to the issue.

“When you tell people about it, not everyone realizes it, they’re going to take out forest areas and that’s almost $5 million for an unfunded cricket oval,” he said. “Where does this money come from?”

Federal MP for Tangney Sam Lim has awarded $650,000 in Federal Government funding to the Spartans Cricket Club in 2022 to expand its facilities.

The club plans to contribute the remaining $470,000 in its accounts to the project. The city also plans to seek State or Federal funding for 50 percent of the remaining cost.

Mr. Meotti emphasized that the petitioners were not against the expansion of local sports facilities, but felt that other projects under construction should not suffer as a result.

“We are not saying to terminate this project completely,” he said. “We are just saying let it go through the normal process; if it accumulates, it will get over it.

“We’re talking about a lot of money. This will also give (the council) the opportunity to secure State and capital funding and perhaps find an alternative to clearing forestland.”

While the city also announced a proposed rate increase for residents, some council members are questioning whether the multimillion-dollar John Connell project is responsible for the increase.

PerthNow said a council report last week said the rate increase was necessary to help pay for infrastructure supplies and prevent the council from depleting its financial reserves.

Gary Tuffin, director of corporate services, said at a council meeting two weeks ago that the city needed to find an additional $200,000 after the council approved the cricket field project, which has not yet been included in the city’s budget.

This week Melville mayor Katy Mair said the proposed 5 per cent rate increase was not linked to design work for the new cricket ground.

“In the budget to be adopted next month, $200,000 is included in the draft 2026-2027 annual budget for detailed design work for the John Connell field expansion,” he said.

“This represents 0.085 per cent of the overall budget spend in the draft 2026-27 annual budget, which has no impact on the proposed 5 per cent rate increase for 2026-2027, in line with the Perth CPI inflation figure of 4.9 per cent.”

The city is still providing funding for the project, Ms. Mair said.