Efforts to secure the Illawarra Hawks a permanent new training facility have only served to highlight a serious lack of quality indoor sports facilities in the region, according to other sporting groups.

The Hawks confirmed in October they've been negotiating with Wollongong City Council for many months to find a more suitable place to train than their long-time home, The Snakepit, where they don't have exclusive use.

One option being considered is Ted Tobin Hall within the Beaton Park Leisure Centre, but for the Hawks to move in, other sports – including badminton, table tennis, pickleball and fitness classes – would have to move out.

Council and the Hawks have assured existing users no-one will be relocated unless they're found a new facility the equal of Ted Tobin Hall.

In a statement, Council said it was looking to provide support for all sports, including basketball which "is one of the highest growing participation sports for children, young people and adults in Australia".

"It has been identified that we need to further support the development of basketball from community to elite sport in Wollongong," the Council statement said.

"While we are one of only two regional cities in Australia to have a professional basketball team – and a National Basketball League founding club – Council is taking a holistic approach to this site [Beaton Park]. It's important to our community that Council is able to support and offer access to facilities across the city that suit a wide range of sports and social pursuits," the Council said.

Other sports are struggling

The secretary of the Illawarra Badminton Association (IBA), Eric Bradley, said basketball wasn't the only sport struggling to find suitable places to play. He said badminton has been played at Beaton Park since the early 1980s when the previous six-court agricultural hall made way for the Wollongong Entertainment Centre at the lower end of Crown Street.

"There is no growth of badminton possible in Wollongong via the IBA and Ted Tobin Hall," Eric said. "Our constraint is simply a lack of facilities. With only four courts at Ted Tobin Hall, we can only offer doubles play and no coaching and training for juniors or adults. We don't advertise our sport... and we've actually put a cap on membership. Reluctantly, we don't accept junior memberships, unless those juniors are sufficiently competent to play with the adults. I had to turn away a mum last week who wanted her 12-year-old son to come and learn to play badminton.

"The lack of Wollongong facilities is one reason we haven't been able to bring players to representative standards as happened in the pre-Beaton Park days, with ample access to facilities then. I'm sure there are far better opportunities for kids and adults wanting to play basketball trying to break into badminton in Wollongong. Both table tennis and badminton, and to a large extent pickleball, are indoor games – so we don't have the same flexibility as some other sports. I don't know how much badminton would grow if we had unrestricted access to numerous courts."

Ironically, Council will be at Beaton Park Leisure Centre on Tuesday, 12 November (9-11am) as part of its community engagement for 'Our Wollongong Our Future''. Council is seeking the public's views on our city's most pressing needs for the next 10 years. 

'There aren't enough courts'

Mike Boyce runs the North Wollongong Pickleball Club and said his sport finds itself in a similar situation to badminton where there's no opportunity for coaching or junior matches. "There simply aren't enough courts to cater for the number of people who want to play," he said. 

"Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the world as well as Australia. It is also planned to be part of future Olympics. The Association and its members already run regular championships in each state with a number of national championships having already occurred. The growth just in Sydney has seen some clubs grow from just a handful of players to hundreds in just a few years." 

Mike said players were turned away due to the lack of court time at Ted Tobin Hall, which he said was fully booked.

Lord Mayor Tania Brown says accessing school facilities after hours could be a part of the solution, and both she and the CEO of the Illawarra Hawks, Stu Taggart, have assured all users of Beaton Park they won't be asked to leave unless there's a suitable new home found for them. The sports have all welcomed those assurances.