LEEMING Spartan Cricket Club says claims the club is “just there to cut trees down” are unfair.

The City of Melville signed off on plans allowing the club to clear 0.68 hectares of native bushland from John Connell Reserve to extend its cricket pitch, raising community concerns over the loss of tree canopy. 

Club president of 10 years Peter Coombs said although approval was granted to clear 0.68 hectares, the club would only remove the bushland necessary to complete the pitch and wanted to work with the community to replace what would be lost with 7.34 hectares of offsets.

The club later clarified it would only need to clear about 0.33 hectares and the project wouldn’t just benefit them but also the Leeming Strikers Soccer Club by creating a third soccer pitch. 

Peter also offered an olive branch to the tree advocates, saying he hoped they would work with the club to replant native vegetation on a currently empty strip behind the cricket nets.

• Leeming Spartan president Peter Coombs. Photo by Isla Tomlinson

“These group of activists, they’re greenies – but I’m with them, don’t worry about that,” Peter said.  

He has flagged larger trees whose canopy extends over parts of the playing field being spared.

“The players down here want to have some shade, and it’s just a lovely backdrop. 

“We’ll put some benches up there so people can sit and play with their dogs. 

“This is not the WACA, this is not the stadium, it’s the community.”

Peter’s son and club secretary Daniel said he spoke to the council about the club potentially rehoming some of the cleared vegetation to behind the cricket nets.

Daniel said one of the most frustrating aspects of the process has been the “amount of misinformation and exaggerated rhetoric that has been circulated publicly by opponents of the the project.

“It isn’t us versus them,” Daniel said. 

“This is a 108-year-old sporting club. 

Institution

“It’s a family institution here and we just want to be able to have the space to play. 

Peter said the club had also seen a “J-curve” in interest in women’s and girls’ sport since Covid, with five to six girls’ teams now involved and the pitch expansion aimed at supporting that growth.

He said the club had been forced to “push away” interest due to a lack of playing space, but hoped the recently approved clearing permit would help accommodate growing demand.

The cricket club was formed in mid-1918 to support the reintegration of young people returning from the First World War back into society.

Peter said the club remains a supportive space, continuing to guide people through mental health challenges and wider life struggles, but said negative attention surrounding the extension has disrupted that focus.

“I get at least one call a day about nothing to do with cricket from our members in all sorts of different life crisis,” Peter said. 

“It can be death, it can be depression, it can be about work, it can be financial. 

“It just goes on… but the cricket community comes together and all that gets forgotten.

“But now we’ve been called just some shithead bloody club… and it’s really upset a lot of people.”

by ISLA TOMLINSON