Lake Macquarie Council to investigate sporting club facilities in response to rise in female sport

The club isn't alone, with huge increases in females playing male-dominated sports, in part due to the success of the Matildas, Southern Stars and Australian women's rugby 7s side.

But this uptick has left clubs' changeroom facilities behind, prompting Lake Macquarie councillor Barney Langford to call on council to investigate the issue.

He raised a successful notice of motion at Monday night's Lake Macquarie council meeting, asking council to work with local clubs with a view to further improving opportunities for equitable participation, including the upgrade of facilities. The motion also called on council to consult with state and federal representatives as well as other Hunter councils over the issue.

Cr Langford mentioned the "explosion" of women and girls' participation in sports such as football, the rugby codes, AFL and basketball in the past 20 years.

He said local football clubs had seen massive increases in female registrations to the point where many clubs now have 50 per cent and more of their membership being female, Garden Suburb being a prime example.

"Yet the facilities they have were built primarily for males to occupy those changeroom facilities," he said.

"We have a change that is happening to the way sport occurs in this country and unfortunately our facilities haven't kept pace with that change.

"This motion will serve to, I hope, act as a clarion call not only for our council but for councils across the region, across the state and indeed across the country to bring our facilities up to standard so that that increased participation by girls and young women will be allowed to occur with the kind of facilities they deserve."

Garden Suburb Football Club president Leonard Allen said the club had two changerooms, which were both open spaces that anyone could walk into.

"They're small and there was never any thought for females when they were built," Mr Allen said. "There's no individual stalls.

"A lot of the time the women will go down the far end of the field or use the toilets to get changed because they're not confident in the changeroom."

The club was promised $300,000 towards new changerooms by Shortland MP Pat Conroy if Labor won the federal election, but the party was unsuccessful.

"It's something we've been keen to address," Mr Allen said. "It's a big ticket item. It would take us seven to eight years of not spending money on anything to be able to pay for new changerooms."

The club is not alone in needing more female-friendly facilities. Mayfield Juniors has had a similar increase in female players without the changerooms to match and had to take the matter into their own hands.

'We've gone from one women's team to three," president Laura Ranger said. "There's been a huge increase in Miniroos. We had a few teams in every age group which was great."

Ms Ranger said they also had no real women's changeroom facilities.

"They're just open rooms, there's no protection from men players and they're not lockable either so the women have been changing in the toilets and taking turns," she said.

The club received a $20,000 grant through the NSW Government's Community Building Partnership to upgrade changerooms including putting in partitioning systems for individual showers and changing areas.

But Ms Ranger would like to see greater support offered to clubs by councils to upgrade their facilities.

"We've been at Stevenson Park for 40 years, and we've had to do a lot to the facilities ourselves over the years."