Regand Park: sporting fields, leisure and environmental activities to be reviewed

St John's Junior Rugby League Football Club has a plan to build four full-sized playing fields at the site. Phase two of the plan includes a gymnasium, cricket nets and netball fields to be used for training.

If it goes ahead, the project is expected to cost about $6.8 million, funded partially by the club with the majority hopefully coming from the government.

At the March Dubbo Regional Council meeting this week, the councillors voted to rescind the Regand Park Master Plan from 2013. Only councillor Anne Jones voted against the proposal.

But, it does not mean the St John's proposal will go ahead.

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Following the decision to rescind the master plan, councillor John Ryan called for a review of the plans for both Regand Park and the river corridor, incorporating "environmental-related activities, sporting and leisure-related activities".

"We took Regand Park off the table with a fairly blunt instrument, purely to concentrate our efforts on beautifying the CBD. That has been incredibly successful," Cr Ryan said.

"Now we need to have another look in 2021 to see what the community wants, what the community needs. Some people are going to want things to remain as it is, other people are going to want all sorts of different things and I think it's a complex matter and we have to get the balance right."

The councillor said he had spoken to a lot of people who wanted the area to remain pristine and then a lot of others who want a mixture of ovals and walking tracks.

Deputy mayor Stephen Lawrence said while the decision to provide in-principal support to St John's Rugby Club was "the worst thing I've seen in my time on council" because they were given only 30 minutes notice before the vote, he backed Cr Ryan's plan.

Cr Lawrence said "years of work" were spent on the Regand Park master plan and he was glad to see it would still be considered.

Dubbo Environmental Group's Margaret MacDonald also spoke about the Regand Park rescission motion at the meeting. She expressed concerns about the lack of consultation with the community and stressed the need for the cultural and environmental significance of the site to be withheld.