Gosford Bowling Club, which has been fighting for its future since its Council-owned land was first pinpointed for redevelopment in 2021, has been given its marching orders by Central Coast Leagues Club.
Bowlers say they have been outmanoeuvred in a game of chess where they couldn’t see their opponent’s chess pieces.
Central Coast Leagues Club (CCLC), which has managed the lease with Central Coast Council on behalf of the bowls club, says it is no longer prepared to subsidise the bowlers and is ready to hand back the land to Council.
In an email to members on Tuesday, January 28, Leagues Club CEO Bevan Paul said the decision will enable CCLC to redeploy club grant funding to the multitude of other internal clubs that CCLC supports.
“Last year, the bowlers received more financial support than the rest of the internal clubs combined, and this lack of equity was a major factor in CCLC’s decision-making process,” Paul said.
The CCLC amalgamated with Gosford City Bowling Club on June 15, 1987 and the email said it had supported the bowling membership consistently and extensively since that time as one of CCLC’s many internal clubs.
“However, with declining membership and attendance, the cost to CCLC members has been steadily increasing, reaching $185,403 in the last financial year,” Paul said.
In September last year, the club put up for sale the front portion of the bowling club’s carpark and the land was sold on January 24.
The bowlers’ access to the parking has been stopped.
The rest of the site is owned by Central Coast Council.
It says the sale of the land effectively leaves the bowls club landlocked.
In November last year CCLC asked the bowlers to develop a business case for growing revenue and membership.
CCLC suggested it would support the bowlers to relocate.
“However, the bowlers wished to remain at the current location and proposed gradually taking on overall management and operational costs of the venue,” Paul said.
“With that request in mind, CCLC responded with a proposal agreeing to enter into an additional lease funded by CCLC, as well as to provide Club Grant support in line with what other internal Clubs receive, on the condition that the bowlers commit to supporting themselves from the commencement of a new lease.
“After extensive discussion and correspondence, the bowlers recently advised CCLC that they were unable to make this commitment.
“As a result, CCLC will now advise Council that the lease will not be renewed and will coordinate with the bowlers on the end-of-lease contract obligations and the exit plan from the site to hand back to Council.”
The bowlers say the email makes it sound like they were not keen to try to reach new arrangements and that was not true.
They had actually said that in view of the lack of information requested they were unable to reach a decision in the timeframe stipulated.
They wanted financial details from CCLC which had not been forthcoming during discussions.
The bowlers say that it was only suggested to them in early January that they needed to sign an agreement with a whole pile of conditions.
Previous to that, the discussions had started as talks about the bowlers working on bringing in new members and bringing in more money.
Then it grew to the bowlers being asked to take over the running of the bowls club.
And they did not want to sign an agreement when they did not have a full breakdown of costs.
They said CCLC did not provide a breakdown of the quoted $185,403 .
“They gave us the cost of the lease, green keeper, electricity rates, water but nothing else,” a spokesperson said.
“It didn’t add up to $185,000 and they didn’t show the money we paid them in green fees.”
The bowlers said they felt they were being put in a vulnerable position and that maybe they would be better off with a lease with Council in their own right.
“We have applied to become incorporated but that will take up to six weeks; too long for us,” the spokesperson said
“We are asking the councillors to support us in our quest to be the lease holders.”
“CCLC has told us that all money in our accounts has to be handed back to them on March 9.
“This money should be used to help us stay and bowl at 18 Dane Drive.”
The bowling club has been fighting for its future ever since the Council in 2021 – under administration – first decided the land should be sold off as part of the Gosford revitalisation.
Council-under-administration held a series of public meetings before it finally made up its mind in June 2024 to continue with the process to eventually sell the bowling club but in the meantime it offered CCLC a final five-year lease that would take effect in late December 2024 and protect the club up to 2030.
Speakers at the public meetings spoke about the importance of the bowling club to them.
“To say that the land will be rezoned for a higher purpose is insulting to the people who presently are using it,” said bowler Dawn Moxham at a meeting in May 2024.
This was a reference to the words of Council CEO David Farmer describing why Council should sell the land.
Her thoughts were echoed by another speaker, Jordan, who said Gosford was presently the biggest bowling club for blind and low vision people in Australia.
“Players come for fortnightly bowls days and other events from Epping, St Ives and Morisset, as well as all parts of the Gosford regional area,” he said.
The bowling club also caters for stroke survivors, people in wheelchairs and wheelbeds, people with Down Syndrome and school children who don’t like contact sport.
Councillors were alerted last week to the car parking land being sold and the bowling club’s imminent closure.
“On Wednesday, January 22, Council was made aware that a vacate (sic) of the bowling club premises was now imminent,” Council said.
It said the Leagues Club would not extend the lease beyond March 9 to the bowlers.
The bowlers are looking to contact the 15 new councillors to get support before they are kicked out.
See previous articles
Urgent call to save bowling club
: https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2024/05/urgent-call-to-save-bowling-club/
The Leagues club continently forgets that as part of the merger with the bowling club it received licences for 20 poker machines. How much revenue has that brought the CCLC. They also forget the land the bowlers car park is on was also gifted to the CCLC in the merger. This was recently sold for over $1m.
The culture which does not support its elderly and vulnerable at the final times of their lives still trying to enjoy life by playing a sport which their feeble bcan do is doomed.
What a shame Gosford is starting to get some life with all the new apartments being built but council is looking at reducing infrastructure, it appears very short sighted as we should be encouraging more people to come into Gosford as isn’t much here at the moment
looks like Central Coast Leagues Club were working with the Administrator in an underhanded way to remove the bowling club. Shame, shame shame. Let the club remain. These bowling club members need to be subsidies and supported otherwise they end up isolated in their senior years. Come on Central Coast Council surely there are grants out there to help this group; help the members find them.
Tell me does central coast council care about anyone in the community every thing they do is a stuff up it’s not a good start for the new council members
they want the elderly to be more active to keep healty but as long as it doesn’t affect the bottom line shame on them