FAQs
The SSRP was built to accommodate the future growth of Mount Barker, but all of its elements are not yet complete. We anticipated that it would be a 10-year project. As a result, the operating and governance model has not fully realised its potential as planned. While the intent was for the precinct to be managed by peak sporting associations, only Football SA took on this role for the soccer facilities from the start of operations.
Ultimately, local associations, specifically the Hills Football League (HFL) and Alexandra and Eastern Hills Cricket Association (AECHA), assumed responsibility for managing what is essentially a semi-professional facility.
While these associations initially took on the management of the facility, they ultimately faced challenges in meeting the financial and personnel demands required for its regional status and the costs associated with a semi-professional venue.
The governance model included a professional skills-based Board to oversee what was envisaged to be a much larger, more complex recreation and leisure precinct with both commercial and non-commercial uses.
We understand that the governance model was ahead of its time and the actual needs of the facility for just the sporting component need to change, and we are actively working on improving it.
The SSRP is a distinct regional facility compared to those used by our local grassroots sporting clubs. It is maintained to a semi-professional standard, which requires a higher level of maintenance and, therefore greater costs than a typical local club level sporting ground.
This elevated standard is what enabled the SSRP to secure the rights to host the Gather Round in 2023 and 2024. The Gather Round is an economic development and tourism drawcard, hence the support that we received from the State Government to host the games that we held.
In its everyday form, the SSRP is a semi-professional sporting facility, and some level of cost recovery is expected for its use. However, there is no expectation for full cost recovery. An approach of user pays is adopted for the SSRP to reflect its higher operating costs and to reflect that this facility is different from local sporting facilities.
As a council we provide support and subsidisation for both the semi-professional and grassroots sporting clubs and their playing surfaces across our district.
We have is what’s called a hierarchy of different standards of sporting facilities so that we can cater for pathways in sport.
All sporting grounds cannot be maintained at the same level as the SSRP, they are maintained to the standards as deemed required for the individual sports and the particular level of those sports.
Grassroots local sporting clubs are an essential part of our community. In light of this, we have been meeting with regional recreation ground committees over recent months to better understand their priorities and needs. We are actively working with local clubs and recreation ground committees to ensure that local needs and service levels at their home grounds are central to our planning and support for sport and recreation for our community.
A key early win of this engagement is the recent decision to increase the turf subsidy for regional sporting committees to help cover the rising costs of maintaining their grounds. This has been well received by local clubs.
Recently there has been a lot of information provide to the community through various channels which has purported to detail the cost to maintain the SSRP facility.
Running and maintenance costs
A large part of the cost of running and maintaining the facility that has been reported comes from depreciation. The depreciation is high because the facility is new and expensive to build. However, depreciation is just an accounting entry, not an actual expense. It reflects the future costs of replacing parts of the facility when they wear out.
The Council does not report depreciation for other sporting facilities in the district, which makes the SSRP look more costly due to this unique accounting treatment.
The operating costs for the SSRP are directly tied to the service levels required to maintain the SSRP’s regional status. The operating costs are reported to the SSRP Board each meeting and include amenity maintenance, oval maintenance, employee costs and Board costs.
Costs to use the SSRP
Casual hire
Our casual hire rates for the oval and changerooms are $75 per hour under our casual hire fees and charges, which is comparable to other facilities within Mount Barker. These casual hire fees are benchmarked against other facilities and are adopted each year and can be found on Council’s website.
Licence (use for a defined period of time on a non-exclusive basis
When held under license, licensees are responsible for operating costs associated with utilities and insurance during their period of use.
Direct oval and amenity maintenance costs were not charged to the individual license holders. The direct cost of curating the turf cricket wicket each summer was not charged to the Cricket Association, Council covered that cost as well as the direct cost of the broader oval curation.
The license charging arrangements aimed to strike a balance between affordability, user pays and an appropriate level of subsidisation by ratepayers for the operation of the facility. It is for this reason that the facility was never contemplated to be held by any one local club and that the rates to utilize the facility are higher than a local club facility.
We have commissioned an independent review of the facility’s fees and charges to provide an objective assessment of the charging regime.
The Hills Football League (HFL) made a decision in 2023 to withdraw its license agreement for the use of the SSRP.
Council remains committed to the vision of the SSRP serving as a venue for various sports, recreation and events at a regional level, rather than as a dedicated home base for any single club.
Several football clubs have continued to use the SSRP oval precinct this year for training and trials, including local community clubs and the SANFL Sturt Football Club whose zone includes the Council district.
397 (66%) of Sturt Football Club’s junior pathway players (under 13 to under 18, both male and female) who play at the SSRP are from the Hills region,
Council continues to engage with our football stakeholders to explore future use opportunities for the SSRP.
The SSRP was developed to be a regional, premier sports and events facility. The oval is currently used by several community sports groups on a casual basis and Council and the SSRP Board are actively pursuing additional user opportunities.
Council’s priority continues to be developing the SSRP in a way that increases the sport, recreation, economic and community development benefits for the park and our district – and that secures the long-term financial sustainability of the precinct and ultimately reduces the reliance on ratepayer subsidies for the facility.
Allowing any one organisation or club to play at the SSRP for a season without a licence, or without paying an appropriate hire fee, would create an inequity across the sporting clubs in the region due to the higher maintenance standards and facilities at the SSRP.
Council would not be able to afford to create the same amenity and standard of facilities across all other recreation grounds in the district, and the local user clubs would experience similar operating affordability impacts.
The SSRP was created by Council with the intention of being a premier regional sporting and events facility, rather than being a base for any one local sporting club or clubs.
The cost of hiring the SSRP is already heavily subsidised by Council, currently around $280,000 for the full year. To reduce the impact on ratepayers, a schedule of fees and charges for users has been set to reflect the higher costs of maintaining the precinct and to gain some contribution towards the costs whilst balancing with affordability, subsidisation and a user pays component.
However, Council also recognises that there are financial challenges for community sporting organisations. With this in mind, Council has commenced an independent review of its fees and charges for the SSRP. We will keep all our local clubs, associations and stakeholders updated on the outcomes of this review.
The SSRP was originally intended to be held under agreement with the peak sporting associations so that local, district, regional and state content could be programmed on the sporting surfaces by the body responsible for that particular sport.
It was intended that local clubs should be able to have access under a broader program of activities. It was not intended that a local club would be the sole occupant due to the resourcing and financial responsibility that this would entail and the inequity that it would create.
If the SSRP is being used by all levels of football and cricket, this will assist in the cross subsidisation from the more professional levels of the respective sports to allow the local sport component to be more affordable. It is a sum of all parts (commercial, semi-professional, regional and local) that will allow the affordability for local clubs to have access to play at the SSRP.
No. The SSRP was built before the Gather Round was even a thing however it was intended to be suitable for AFL games.
The Council is extremely pleased with Football SA (FSA) as the head licensee of the SSRP soccer facilities and its program of usage of the SSRP facilities.
The Mount Barker United Football Club (MBUFC) is the anchor tenant under the arrangement between MBUFC and FSA for its 40 plus teams to use the SSRP.
Under FSA, the Adelaide Hills Junior Soccer Association also are a user of the venue playing weekend fixtures and representative team trainings during the week. Further, FSA coordinate school holiday programs, referee training and development and development centres for talented boys and girls from the entire Adelaide Hills region.
The site continues to be utilised extremely well and is programmed for usage by local, district, regional and state clubs and programs.
The site is being used so well that the Council and FSA have recently entered discussions regarding the expansion of soccer facilities at the site. A grant application to support this expansion was lodged with the Federal Government in early September under the Thriving Suburbs program and we are awaiting the outcome of the grant process.
Council recognises the importance of community sport and the significant benefits it brings to our district in terms of health and wellbeing and community connectedness.
We are investing in supporting local sport through a number of initiatives, including investing in improving our many other community sports and recreation facilities.
We continue to provide sporting grounds to recreation management committee’s across the region for a peppercorn rent, which in many cases is $1/year.
This includes increasing our investment in turf maintenance this year at sports grounds in Callington, Echunga, Macclesfield, Meadows and Nairne.
We continue to directly maintain the showgrounds oval at Council’s cost which is utilised by the Mount Barker Football Club and regional shows.
We have been meeting with the recreational grounds committee’s across the district to listen to them in relation to what is important to them and how they see Council’s role in assisting them to continue to provide community based sport to our community.
We enjoy seeing our community using the SSRP in a casual, non-structured way each day either by enjoying it with their families, walking their dog or undertaking running laps or other forms of fitness. We know that access to be able to recreate at the site is important to our residents.