Newcastle Show chairman Peter Evans says government plans to put 18-storey apartment buildings on the showground site while allowing the annual event to continue in the show ring "will not work", an early reminder to planners that the road to Hunter Park will be bumpy.
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Planning Minister Paul Scully and Newcastle council published a Broadmeadow "place strategy" this week which promises, among other things, to transform 63 hectares of mostly Crown land between Broadmeadow station and Hunter Stadium into a "world-class" sports, entertainment and residential precinct.
The strategy includes moving a host of sports and community groups that now use parts of that land, including Broadmeadow Magic Football Club, District Park tennis centre, Newcastle Harness Racing Club, Newcastle Basketball, the Police Citizens Youth Club and at least parts of the show.
The 30-year plan proposes a long-overdue indoor arena, a lively entertainment zone around the indoor and outdoor stadiums, a "regional" aquatic centre, new parks and gardens, and up to 20,000 homes.
Under the strategy's staging timeline, in 10 to 20 years the harness track will start to be redeveloped, Magic Park will be "transformed into an accessible public open space that provides significant flood mitigation" and the tennis centre will become a "mixed-use development", meaning flats and shops.
Newcastle Entertainment Centre will need to be demolished and the new indoor arena built in the north-west corner of the precinct. Newcastle Basketball Stadium will need to be moved before it is replaced with apartment towers up to 30 storeys high.
The rescue helicopter service is mentioned in the 139-page strategy as one of the "sources of risk within the precinct that influence land use", along with Ampol's high-pressure fuel pipeline, secondary gas mains and the rail corridor.
Some of the land users, including the chopper service and Broadmeadow Magic, did not want to discuss the strategy before receiving a briefing on Friday.
The show boss, Mr Evans, is a prominent Newcastle Liberal party figure and a strident critic of the Hunter Park plans proposed by Coalition and Labor governments.
He said the new strategy's proposal to continue staging the show on half the showground site while developing the rest was "impossible".
"Newcastle must retain the total site and restore buildings which Venues [NSW] has demolished so that the ground can be used for another 120 years and for up to 365 days a year," he said.
The strategy differs from earlier proposals in that it retains the show ring, grandstand and gates. A 2022 master plan proposed converting the oval-shaped arena into a garden.
"Diverse housing which interfaces with the publicly accessible open space of the show ring area will be provided," the new document says.
"The showground area will be renewed, and heritage items retained, to provide for high-quality, publicly accessible open space that can continue to be used for events such as the Newcastle Show."
The strategy shows future high-rise apartments on the site of the existing entertainment centre and car park, which amounts to roughly half the showground land.
The document identifies the showground among four publicly owned "first-move" sites that the state government will rezone to boost housing supply as quickly as possible.
The others are the basketball stadium, PCYC and Broadmeadow locomotive depot zones.
The strategy flags funding for the redevelopment of these sites in the 2025-26 budget cycle, which suggests solutions will need to be found for these stakeholders sooner rather than later.
Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation will oversee infrastructure programs to prepare the four sites for sale to private developers.
It is not clear how the annual show would proceed on half the showground site, though the Newcastle Herald has been told parts of the event could be shifted to new parkland within the Hunter Park precinct.
The showground site also hosts major trade shows, markets and other events that will need to find a home elsewhere at Hunter Park.
As the stakeholders will no doubt make clear to the government, their facilities are the product of many, many years of blood, sweat and tears on the part of staff and volunteers.
Some have waged long campaigns for public funding while raising money themselves.
Magic Park, for instance, is the home of a proud semi-professional club that has strived to make the ground one of the best in local first-grade football.
The strategy and state-led rezoning plans will go out on public exhibition in the next two months.
Michael Parris
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
