The Dubbo Sporting Hub is still months away from construction beginning

After years of questions being raised about would the project actually go ahead, things are headed in the right direction with the money allocated for the facility confirmed by the new state government.

When announced back in 2018, Troy Grant was still the Member for Dubbo and it is now his successor Dugald Saunders who has inherited the project which is set to be built close to the Charles Sturt University campus in Dubbo.

In February 2023, Mr Saunders was on hand to announce more funding for the project with an additional $23.3 million allocated.

"Since that time, we have had an election and every project I think it is fair to say has been reviewed by the current government which has taken an extraordinary amount of time," he said

"We have had it confirmed that the project scope is still the same as it was, the project control group has continued to meet to ensure that the project is actually happening.

"I've just had it confirmed that we have development applications in (with Dubbo Regional Council) for the civil and construction work."

Since being reviewed by the state government, Mr Saunders confirmed tenders would be released in November.

"From here, my point will be 'we did the sod turn so we were basically expecting work to start in May or June'," he said.

"But obviously with the change of government, unfortunately, they have taken a long time to review everything and there was some concern that they actually may have scrapped some of the funding even though it was all allocated.

"That isn't the case. The funding that we have provided in government is still there, which is basically $48 million on the table. My role now is to basically make everything is on track.

"This is a massive uplift and everyone is wanting to know what has been happening so hopefully by the start of next year we can see some actual work happening."

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PCYC will move their Dubbo office to the site which will feature a reception, kitchen, admin space, police area, youth hub, learning room, boxing and fitness gym plus three multi-purpose rooms.

Dubbo Basketball is set to be one of the first organised sporting clubs to call the new site home.

The state-of-the-art facility will also have the capacity to host carnivals for sports such as basketball and netball, some of which have already been discussed.

"Dubbo Regional Sports Hub will provide much-needed indoor facilities to enable increased sports participation, attract major regional events and support the next generation of sporting talent," an Office for Sport spokesperson said.

According to both Mr Saunders and the Office for Sport, the project will be completed by early 2025 with construction to start in 2024.

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