Google map of Marrickville Golf Course & Mahoney Reserve. Compare this map with the map below of Kogarah Golf Course & it is easy to see that Kogarah Golf Course has a far greater number of trees. There are many opportunities for Marrickville Council to improve biodiversity at Marrickville Golf Course without reducing it to a 9-hole course.
Marrickville Council has released its Recreation Needs Research Strategy for public comment. Only 1.27% of the Marrickville LGA population participated in the community consultation opportunities. The results are now up on ‘Your Say Marrickville’ & the community is being asked to comment.
Most popular comments at the time of reading is the call for more off-leash areas for dog walking with many people very concerned by Council’s proposal to reduce the 18-hole Marrickville Golf Course to 9-holes. Marrickville Council say they want to do this to make more playing fields next to Mahoney Reserve & use the freed up land to create a biodiversity corridor along the Cooks River.
I do not believe that reducing the golf course to 9 holes is the right thing to do & I do not play golf. Golf courses are hotspots for biodiversity traditionally being a large space of green usually with much landscaping & lots of large trees. Council should be planting many more trees & shrubs along the fairways, the escarpment & along the river as this will increase habitat & biodiversity.
One of the comments said the Marrickville Golf Club had a membership of 600 & they will have many more guests using the club as well. This is not a small usage in my opinion. Plenty of people other than golfers use the golf course. There are the many people who walk through the golf course as well as along the river with or without dogs. The Club has always willingly shared the space with the community.
The golf course is one of the best places for bird watching in the whole LGA & has a huge variety of birds. The Marrickville Mudcrabs also has a remnant bush site here that they look after. The club acts as a club where you can eat & get a drink. They have seasons of Sunday Jazz open to everyone & all sorts of functions are held here.
Marrickville has a great golf course that offers a great deal & is an asset to the community. It should be improved, not reduced in size & certainly not for playing fields as these will actually significantly decrease the biodiversity potential of the site. It doesn’t make sense to do this.
Sporting clubs are a wonderful vital asset, however there are many in the community who don’t like that they only have limited use of parks because of use by sporting clubs. I would hate to see yet another facility reduced in size.
The aim to improve biodiversity at the golf course can easily be achieved by clever design ideas that do not require the reduction of the golf course to 9-holes. You can look at Kogarah Golf Course to easily see the difference in the amount of tree & shrub planting & landscaping.
Marrickville Council also wants to review the requirement for 2 croquet clubs in the LGA. Once again Council is looking at removing facilities. Council should be letting people know about the facilities & encouraging them to use them. Who knew there would be such an upswing in what appeared to be the dying sport of lawn bowls.
You can download the Recreation Needs Research Strategy & leave comments online here – http://yoursaymarrickville.com.au/your-say-marrickville?module=guest_book#tool
Council offers a summary of the Recreation Needs Research Strategy , but this doesn’t discuss the finer points such as decreasing the golf course to 9-holes & other quite major things. I will write more about the other issues of interest over another couple of posts.
Google map of Kogarah Golf Course showing an abundance of trees.
3 comments
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May 27, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Helayne
Hmm…in fact golf courses use a LOT of fertilisers, pesticided and herbicides and of course water; so having one on the edge of the Cooks River, into which run-off will go, may not be such a good idea. I cannot comment for the reason to desize the course on the basis of underusage by golfers as I don’t know how many use the course weekly/monthly/yearly – if this is a reason given by council- a club that has 600 members does not necessarily mean 600 people who use the golf course of course! Talk of a bush corridor a long the river increasing biodiversity is very enticing, and does sound like a good idea; however, the devil is in the detail. I shall definitely be looking into this one very carefully.
May 28, 2012 at 1:36 pm
marrickvillegreens
Greens will not support cutting Marrickville Golf Course in half
Media Release – 28 July 2012
A proposal to reduce the size of Marrickville Golf Course from 18 to 9 holes will not be supported from Marrickvilles’ Greens Councillors.
“The Greens want Council to work with the Golf Club to get better environmental outcomes along the Cooks River”, said Greens Councillor, Peter Olive.
“We recently moved that council spend $30,000 for tree planting on the Golf Course and Council is about to construct a rain garden from Tennyson Street, Dulwich Hill.”
“The Golf Course is a well used facility in the area and we want to retain its amentity value and improve its biodiversity. The best and most realistic way to do this is to work with the club,” he said.
Contact: Peter Olive: 0401 719 148
May 29, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Kristina
I don’t play golf but I love Marrickville golf course. I regularly walk there.
I do not like the idea of reducing its size. It’s a ridiculous idea.
The golf course is actually one of the best parks in Marrickville.
It is a tranquil space that is good to walk in. It is away from traffic.
The trees are large and varied.
The hills are wonderful. They contribute to the varied landscape. This makes the park interesting and more inviting.
Some stretches along the river are open while others are screened with the mangroves. The paths are not concreted, so you can walk on earth & grass. It is beautiful to walk along this golf course.
I have not noticed any woodchip!
There are many trees with low side branches. The fig trees are fantastic.
There are stone boulders and sections of long grass. And even sections of rambling growth. It is a wonderful nature park. There are no other large nature settings like this in Marrickville LGA. (Please correct me if I’m mistaken!)
I think it is ridiculous to reduce the size of this place especially for playing fields. There are so many playing fields all around the Cooks River – why have any more? Also most of the parks in Marrickville are not as tranquil as the golf course. The parks are mostly too open to traffic because the trees have all their side branches trimmed. These parks are not so tranquil.
To “make more playing fields next to Mahoney Reserve & use the freed up land to create a biodiversity corridor along the Cooks River” is a contradiction!
Instead of halving the golf course, Marrickville council should assist them by planting more trees. This would help the existing biodiversity corridor.
Spaces such as this are really important for the whole community.
Marrickville Council – please leave it alone. If you want to destroy something, perhaps some de-paving would be a better use of resources! Pull up concrete not golf grass! – and plant more trees, verges & swales. That would increase biodiversity corridors!