De Luca gets slammed over defending why mountain bikers should not have to pay

Its probably a purely hypothetical question as with the existing trails it would seem unlikely that the actual cost of collection , including supplying a booth, fencing to prevent unpaid entry, toilet facilities for the collector , backup collector so he can use the loo, etc,etc would come anywhere close to the funds collected, let alone provide any boost to the council coffers. Pay and display as for parking might be better but with a much higher avoidance rate, and would still need constant attention from rangers (and hence costs to the Council) to ensure compliance

Pay to use the bush? Not bloody likely! I don't believe we should be paying NPWS entry fees to National Parks as it is, since we already pay taxes which is supposed to pay for that sort of thing. And to then expect us to pay PER ride would be just ridiculous IMO.

But obviously the main gripe about DeLuca's commments is that they've targetted the Sea Eagles... it doesn't seem that anyone is really thinking about charging MTB's to ride in the bush. In fact I believe it's referring to "sporting groups" using community facilities and since we are not actually a funded group in any way, unlike the lifesavers or a footy team, they'd be hard pressed to find a suitable way to charge us for using the 'facilities', wouldn't they? Unless of course they do put up a 'tool booth' or something as was suggested... but can you really see that happening? I know, NPWS do it in national parks, but there's a lot more access points to manly dam than there is to most NP's, so it'd be much harder to police and enforce.

Frankly though, who cares if the Sea Eagles have to pay a bit more to use community facilities? Only those doing the paying, I'm sure!

--- In my defence, I'm a sharks fan. Just leave that one alone thank you. ---

Colt

I'm not a Warringah rate payer and have my fingers in too many advoocacy pies already to take this on.

For anyone (begrudgingly) keen to take up the challenge with council - here is a start on the argument. There has also been some interest from the Mayor and GM to come up with the 'next steps' following the FoNL forum....

In Manly, Warringah and Pittwater there are 26,000 playing field users - (including double counting all the kids who play summer and winter sports and arcery, netball and baseball users who don't use 'playing fields')

In August 2006 the local councils commissioned a consultants report that idendified sportsfield users contributed 3.4% of recurrent costs (i.e. not the initial costs to build the thing in the first place) representing an annual subsidy of $941,361 in maintenance expenditure alone.

The report concluded:

"In general terms, Council administration and accounting systems to not facilitate the ready retrieval of data essential to the effective measurement and review of financial performance of individual sportsfields. Consequently, Councils are unable to exercise effective budget controls.....

....Provision and maintenance of the region’s sporting fields to the expected standards by Councils is not sustainable using current management practices. The following recommendations should be considered for implementation:

...SHOROC Councils aim to recover 25% of total recurrent costs, including annual provisions for the future costs of long-term asset maintenance/refurbishment, from charges to users of
sportsfields. "

http://www.shoroc.nsw.gov.au/pdf/Sportsgrounds-T... (page 1-2)

At the time each player apparently contributed $3 per season for use of all grounds - although at a total cost recovery of $55K across Manly/Warringah/Pittwater, this suggests that about a third didn't pay their rego fees, or a third of the contributions to the sporting union were taken up in administration costs. ($55k/26k ~$2 per player reaching council)

In November 2006, the state government recognised:

" The average annual cost recovery on maintenance for sportsgrounds in Manly, Warringah and Pittwater is 3.4%, compared to approximately 15% in Mosman”. Furthermore, “a review of other local government areas in Sydney and Melbourne identified the target cost recovery on user charges for maintenance ranged between 11% and 40%"

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/c... (page 15)

Recent ammedments described in the rec strategy now mean that they now contribute $5 to $7 per player. At $6 per player this would double the recovery to 6.8%, well short of the 25% target accepted by council.

http://www.warringah.nsw.gov.au/publications/doc... (page 53)

Interstingly the Lawson Tregear report states

"With approximately 26,000 individual members of associations affiliated to MWP Sporting Union, an average of an additional $13.50 would need to have been collected from each person in order to meet the 25% recovery target. " (page 20)

Despite the increase in user fees, the rec strategy also suggests that council is expected to increase its capital and maintenance expenditure on sportsground facilities ' to meet user expectations' meaning that the increases in user charges could well reduce the overall cost recovery on a percentage basis.

The 2006 report also recommended:

" The key role of the MWP Sporting Union should revert to that of a traditional “sports council”, representing and lobbying the needs and issues of its members to Councils and other government and sporting agencies. The MWP Sporting Union could maintain a role in liaising between member associations and Council staff in the allocation process, providing advice in both directions when required "

However, council has chosen not to implement this recommendation, which is presumably due to pressure from MWPSU.

Mountain Bikers could argue for the same privledged posistion as MWPSU but I doubt that any of us have the time or inclination to argue with council that people can't afford a $10 a season increase in user fees to cover a quarter of the cost of recitfying of the damage that they do each week (i.e. maintenance), let alone contributing to the cost of building new facilities.

Instead it is controversial for mountain bikers to ask council to allow us to remediate any damage that we might be caused and at the same time to improve the standard of councils facilities on a volunteer basis (even though this is supported by the PoM (page 18). We become the devil's spawn if we dare ask for council to contribute captial to providing facilities to accomodate for 20,000 riders in the first place. (At an indicative cost of $15K to $30k per km, a million bucks would provide 33-66 km of new singletrack. A million bucks might provide one minor sportsground by the time you'd cleared the land, levelled the dirt, connected the water and put in some pretty basic fencing, parking and drainage)

The Sea Eagles issue is just a symptom of Council's unsustainable sporting gound cost recovery. Cost recovery in neighbouring councils is:

Mosman: 16%
Willoughby: 30%
Hornsby: 20%
Parramatta: 14%
Bankstown: 20%
Warringah: 3.4% (maybe 6.8% under the new $5-7 a season arrangements)

It's time to rationalise the $914k per annum maintenance subsidies to sportsfields users and support unstructured recreation on an equal footing.

It's also interesting to note that according to the PoM the Golf Club at Manly Dam paid $3,600 per annum ($10/day) to lease the land from council (in 1999). At a guess this is probably another less obvious subsidy in the range of $500k to $1m per year.

http://www.warringah.nsw.gov.au/publications/doc... (page 18)

In the Rec Strategy the golf courses also say that they stuggle to make a dollar under the current arrangements..... Just putting it out there that the golf course would make a great mountain bike park - and the regen guys would no doubt help rehabilitate it over time.

All that Mountain bikers are asking for is equitable treatment, recognition of changing community needs and responsible financial management from their elected representatives.

....Oh and that the said elected representatives do their job in representing the community (rather than those who shout the loudest) so that we don't have to get 1,000 of us together to stroll into a council meeting to prove that we exist.