Wet weather reignites Sydney’s turf wars

Hundreds of Sydney sports fields have been waterlogged by the recent deluge, leading to match cancellations and reigniting a controversial push for more synthetic turf facilities.

Councils have shut fields to winter sports competitions this month due to safety concerns, and to protect the turf, as Sydney recorded its wettest August in 27 years.

Holroyd Rangers president Danny Rizk said four weeks of cancelled soccer matches at Guildford West Sportsground had left a “bad taste” for bright-eyed kids keen to play.

“When they’re there every week, they’re connected, they’re excited – there are things going on,” he said.

“A lot of the kids have just got a disconnect from the sport now. We’re a fairly big club in our district and have tripled in size over the last five or six years. But weather like this definitely sets us back.”

Synthetic fields have been installed at Zetland’s Gunyama Park, which opened in 2021, and Lambert Park and Tempe Reserve in the inner west.

Justfootball Academy director Rocky Silipo said these fields greatly reduce wet-weather training and game cancellations.

“When kids have got the synthetic turf, there’s no impact at all – it has to be really torrential for a good half an hour or more for it to impact playing on the field,” Silipo said.

But synthetic turf projects, including some in West Pymble and Lilyfield, have faced a backlash over costs and environmental concerns.

A 2022 independent review of the impacts of synthetic turf by the NSW chief scientist “did not identify major health risks associated with synthetic turf, although there are knowledge gaps”.

However, it did find the surface’s heat retention meant it could be up to 38 degrees hotter than natural turf when unshaded. Rubber infill and turf fibre blades were also found to have washed into NSW waterways.

Natural Turf Alliance co-founder Dale Crosby said councils should instead allocate funding towards maintaining and improving the resilience of grass fields.

“Natural fields will be problematic with the rain, but there’s no question that if these fields are properly maintained and looked after, with the right soil and grass maintenance, they’ll recover very quickly,” he said.

“We all want more fields for our players. The problem with synthetic going up all over the place is that we’re losing green space and community space.

“Synthetic fields really become the provenance, the ownership, of the sporting clubs, and the community loses that asset for passive recreation.”

City of Ryde Mayor Trenton Brown said the council was committed to building more synthetic fields due to their reliability and enhanced accessibility.

He said closed fields were “a natural and understandable frustration, given how much we love sport in this country. It’s frustrating – everyone in Sydney is in the same boat.”

Inner West Council is on board too. Mayor Darcy Byrne said: “Demand for access to quality playing fields in our local area continues to grow year-on-year. Opening all-weather playing fields is vital to address this and is a priority for us.”

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