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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-02 Daily Xml
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Walkerville YMCA

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (15:15): I rise to give an exciting update on one of the key election commitments I took to the 2022 state election, and that was to bring back community sport and recreation services to the heart of Walkerville.

There was the former YMCA at Walkerville in Smith Street, which had an incredibly long history, one that was obvious to me during my time campaigning for the seat of Adelaide when I was knocking on doors and literally every person in the township of Walkerville would tell a story about their connection to the YMCA, whether it was their own, whether it was their children's or their grandchildren's. Everybody had a strong connection to this important community hub.

It is easy to see why. It had a very long history in our township. It first began in the 1950s at the local RSL. It became so popular that they had to expand the area for recreation services, but then it came to the point where they realised they needed a brand-new centre. In the early 1960s the club started fundraising for that effort with one of the locals, the RSL YMCA President at the time, Mr Gordon L. Northcott, raising £2,000 which was a significant amount of money when you consider it was the 1960s which actually earnt him a Father of the Year nomination from the club as well.

The women's committee worked incredibly hard during that time, running gala days, social events and bottle and paper drives to raise money, and eventually in 1965 they were able to open the new YMCA at Walkerville.

That served our community for generations, but sadly in late 2020 the then Town of Walkerville council decided not to renew the lease of what was then the INEA YMCA and they sadly moved out. I will never forget standing there on that day that they moved out with bits of gymnastic equipment strewn outside, a 'Save the YMCA' T-shirt hanging off the front gate, because it did mean that after generations we were losing sport, rec and community services in the heart of Walkerville.

So we got to work. We held forums, we fought plans at the time to potentially redevelop the site, ensuring that the land remained in community hands, and I was able to work and secure a $5 million commitment that, if elected, we would return sport, rec and community services to the heart of Walkerville. After my election we were able to partner with the Town of Walkerville, a new look Town of Walkerville after the council elections, who worked with us to develop a new plan for the 39 Smith Street site.

They matched that commitment, so we had $10 million to be able to work together to bring back sport, community and recreation services to the heart of Walkerville. We undertook extensive community consultation and were able to contract Hutchinson Builders to build a brand-new Walkerville Recreation Centre. So that work is now well underway. Just a couple of weeks ago I was able to have a tour of the Town of Walkerville, with councillors, with Mayor Melissa Jones and also CEO Andrew Johnson and it was wonderful to see the progress of the new centre.

It will provide a two-court stadium for indoor sports–so think basketball, netball and also indoor soccer and gymnastics. Just on Friday, expressions of interest closed for those community and sporting groups to put forward their interest for operating out of the new centre.

It was wonderful last week to also join the Walkerville Netball Club in their celebration. They have just recently been accepted to the Premier League. They also unveiled a new logo and they are very excited about having this new home in this new two-court stadium in the heart of Walkerville that will provide for so many budding netballers into the future.

The construction of the centre is due to be completed towards the end of the year, and so we very much look forward to officially opening the centre early next year. I also want to give a shout-out to the local—we will announce them later in the week through the Town of Walkerville—who won the YOU Name It! competition to find the brand-new name for our new Walkerville recreation centre.

Congratulations to that local. They have a very longstanding history with the site. They used to take their grandchildren to the former YMCA at 39 Smith Street, and so we are very proud to announce that the new centre will be called The W. We will finish construction later this year, and I cannot wait to welcome locals to our new facility early next year to start making new memories.

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