A DECISION to remove hundreds of trees at John Connell Reserve in Leeming for a cricket pitch has been “kicked down the road” until next year. 

The Leeming Spartans Cricket Club operates on the reserve and requested a second pitch, which would require a neighbouring patch of bushland to be cleared. 

Councillor Clive Ross is strongly opposed to the tree removal but says the debate is “not about the cricket pitch versus trees”, suggesting a nearby tipsite could be transformed into a second pitch following remediation. 

“The second cricket pitch can easily be accommodated on land further east which would need to be remediated… the Cricket Club could have had that two, three years earlier had they not insisted on wanting these trees removed,” Mr Ross said. 

• Leeming Spartans Cricket Club president Peter Coombs says they’re having to turn away prospective players for lack of a pitch. Photo by Katherine
Kraayvanger

Remediating

“Remediating the tip site, which currently emits methane and other noxious gasses… is something that the City should do as a matter of priority, given it declared a climate emergency, and that means stopping the emission of noxious gasses; so cutting down 209 trees just because they’re in the way doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“The City has lost 84 hectares of green canopy cover over the last six years… to cut down another 209 mature trees that are part of the habitat for the black Carnaby’s, Baudin’s, red tailed black cockatoos is, in my view, rather a criminal activity – it’s vandalism.” 

Spartans president Peter Coombs says the club has between 800 and 900 members and has been forced to turn away prospective players because there is not enough space.

He says the new pitch has been 32 years in the works. 

“The area is booming, houses have been subdivided, there’s high rises… the population [has grown] and sport hasn’t kept up,” Mr Coombs said.  

“There’s not one ground available, they’re all used, they’re all occupied, people are turning away members and players. 

“This season, for example, our bottom grades couldn’t play because there was no ground, and last Saturday, the girls’ team had to be turned away because there was no ground.” 

Mr Coombs presented the Chook with environmental assessments which classify the bushland as good, degraded, or completely degraded, which is why the Club feels comfortable to use the space for another pitch. 

“We’ve gone through all the requirements and legislation and clearing permits, there’s been every possible scrutiny done, we’ve done environmental reports,” he said. 

“If [the assessments] came back as an excellent are and beautiful bush, we’d say, ‘no worries, forget it’, but it’s not…I get the emotion in it all, but what they’re talking about is a different place, it’s not facts, it’s not Kings Park.

He says the issue made for a thorny council electio.

“There’s probably 45 to 50 [trees] in the area, there’s not 200, so people have been saying this for mischief,” Mr Coombs said. 

“The person who was running against the councillor for this area, Jennifer Spanbroek, activated this through a sitting councillor [Clive Ross], and neither of them have come and spoken to any of us.

Consultants

“We’ve had more consultants than you can imagine over the years on what to do with all this area, so now it all turns on its head to gain votes for election.” 

The environmental impacts of building the pitch on the nearby tip “far outweigh the benefit”, according to Mr Coombs, and will cost “$50 million” compared to the $650,000 to extend the existing grassed area which will be funded by a federal government grant. 

“To make [the tip] flat, you’d have to take out… what do you do with that? Where do you dump it? It’s asbestos, it’s toxic,” he said. 

“To make it into a playing field, you’d have to take the bush out [to the south] which is well graded, strip it back to make the fields big enough. 

“Parking is another extension we’d have to build, ablution blocks, change rooms…it is not sustainable, because [the tip ground] is sinking forever.” 

The item was deferred by councillors to be considered at the April 2026 council meeting.

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER