Newcastle council consultants have backed away from two contentious proposals for a shake-up of sports grounds in the city.
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Queensland firm Otium produced a sports discussion paper for the council last year to prepare Newcastle for a growth in population from 162,000 to 188,000 by 2031.
The paper suggested converting Wickham's Passmore and Hawkins ovals, now occupied by Hamilton rugby club, into Australian rules fields and using No.2 Sportsground, now home to Wanderers, for National Premier Leagues soccer games.
But a draft version of the Otium-prepared City of Newcastle Strategic Sports Plan, which councillors voted this week to put on public exhibition, recommends retaining rugby at Wickham and ensures union retains primacy over the NPL at No.2.
The draft plan, written after consultation with sports clubs and organisations, retains a well received suggestion to combine all of Newcastle Netball Association's courts into one location at National Park and increase their number from 30 to 32.
It also proposes creating a football "centre of excellence" around Lambton Jaffas' Arthur Edden Oval and possibly converting it and a National Park soccer field into synthetic surfaces.
The plan recommends drainage, lighting and amenities upgrades at many fields and details ways in which the council can improve its communication with clubs.
Otium found 18 per cent of sports fields in Newcastle were over-used but 54 per cent were under-used.
It said the city had enough space for sports fields to last it until 2031 but some of it should be better allocated.
The draft plan says the city has 0.83 hectares of space dedicated to sport per 1000 people, about twice as much as eight council areas in northern Sydney.
Otium's initial findings were based on an analysis of participation and forecast growth in each sport, a measure which favours soccer and Australian rules over rugby.
The review covered 13 "primary" sports and measured the market share of each. Soccer dominated with 27.5 per cent of participants in the target sports, followed by touch football and Oztag at 21.1 per cent, cricket (13.1), rugby league (10.7), netball (7), tennis (5.6), rugby union (3.9), equestrian (3.6), athletics (3), softball (1.8), Australian rules (1.7), baseball (0.7) and croquet (0.2).
The draft strategy recommends planning for sports in the "western corridor", where the council has acquired land at Maryland for a sports complex.
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