Oberon's long-awaited Sports Complex is another step closer to reality with artistic renders appearing in a recent report to council.
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The complex will be the new home of the Oberon Tigers Rugby League Football Club, and will include two rugby league fields, three netball courts, hockey facilities, a club house, seating and amenities, and a women's change room.
Oberon mayor Mark Kellam said the facility is about more than sport.
"It's a really really good facility and I suspect what we'll end up doing is probably hosting a number of the minor sort of tournaments particularly for underage representative things that sort of thing.
"Sport is really important in a small town, but this complex is more about the town, it's about getting facilities which people in the 21st-century expect to have and we haven't had them."
Hockey is one of the fastest-growing sports in Oberon and this facility will mean players won't have to travel to Bathurst anymore to train and play.
"The thing about for me is that local kids go away to get educated a lot of them come back when they get married and because they think about how their childhood was like in Oberon and the choice might be, 'well we can go back to Oberon which doesn't really have good facilities or we can live in Bathurst which is pretty close'," Cr Kellam said.
"We'd rather have the facilities to to attract families back."
The local community gathered in February 2024, to celebrate the turning of the first sod for the highly anticipated project, which arose out of the Black Summer Bushfire grants.
Federal Member for Calare Andrew Gee said at the time the grants have been an aid across many parts of the Central West which were devastated by the fires.
"Across our region, communities united like never before in the face of that unprecedented threat, and extraordinary projects like this have sprung to life," Mr Gee said on Facebook.
"In July 2021 I announced more than $16.5 million in Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Grants with 15 projects across the region being funded - and this exciting project is one of them."
