By Ewen McRae
Community sport is starting to return, and four clubs in Moorabool will find training better than before following the installation of new lighting.
Recreation reserves in Bungaree, Dunnstown, Wallace and Gordon have all had four new 30-metre light towers installed to help with training and games at the reserves once normality returns.
Bungaree and Dunnstown lighting systems have been upgraded to 150 lux, and Gordon and Wallace have been upgraded to 100 lux.
Councillors Tom Sullivan and Lawry Borgelt said the upgrades were a great result for those who used the reserves in their municipal wards.
“These light upgrades provide greater opportunity for the community to use these community facilities,” Cr Sullivan said.
“The grounds are predominantly used by the football clubs in winter and cricket clubs in summer, and the players at these clubs had been training at nights under pretty poor lighting conditions.
“The lighting levels were non-uniform across the playing surfaces which impacted on player safety, and there was ground deterioration on the parts of the ovals that were adequately lit.
“These new light towers will light up the whole oval, providing a safer and bigger space for training and playing.”
Cr Borgelt said clubs would now be able to use the grounds in evenings and in poor natural light for longer hours.
“One of the drawbacks of having a poorly lit oval was it limited the time players could train on it,” Cr Borgelt said.
“These new light towers can keep them on the track for longer.”
Dunnstown and Bungaree Football Netball clubs made significant contributions to the project to get a higher standard of light, with the rest of the funding coming from Council, and from the State Government’s Community Sports Infrastructure Loans Scheme.
Work has taken place over the past few months to install the towers, which will now be aimed, tested and commissioned in the next few weeks and be ready for use by late June.
