Background

Background

Newland Park has been the home of the Kensington Baseball Club for nearly 50 years and is enjoyed by players of all ages.

A recent risk assessment noted the danger to the community of baseballs being hit outside of the park. One option to minimise the risk of baseballs leaving the park from the eastern boundary and striking pedestrians or road users along Hallett Road is to install an eight metre high boundary net. The image below shows the proposed netting position.

The temporary lightweight fabric netting (see image below) will only be erected when baseball players over the age of 17 years (ie seniors) are either training or playing a game.

The poles will stay in place during the year with the netting being raised and lowered by the Club, much like a flag on a flag pole (see image below).

The netting is the same as that installed at a number of football ovals and other venues to screen spectators from ball sports. The netting and poles are coloured black to minimise visual impact. There is a possibility that the net may impact on birds when they are raised but as the nets are only raised during senior games or training, this risk should be minimal.

The only other option to mitigate the risk is to relocate the older players to another site, if available. At this time there are no other suitable sites available within the City of Burnside and Baseball SA is not aware of any other available sites within the metropolitan area.