Torquay netballers face decade wait for crucial facilities

Torquay netballers face lengthy wait for toilets and change rooms Sat 1 Aug 2026 at 9:36am In short: Victorian Surf Coast netballers say they have to get changed in their cars because of a lack of appropriate facilities. Council plans show they could have to wait up to 12 years for change rooms in a nearby basketball stadium. The council says the netballers can share a nearby community and sporting hub in the meantime. Before each home game, netballers from the Surf Coast Suns have to put up two large gazebos to be used as their change rooms. Spectators are called to help wrestle with the structures at the Suns' notoriously windy home courts at the Banyul-Warri Fields in Torquay, and some players opt to get changed in their cars to avoid the hassle. "In simple terms, it's horrible. The facilities for netballers are next to non-existent," player and under-19s coach Codi Emery said. "The fact that we class a gazebo on game day as 'facilities' is outrageous. It's not good enough." Players who do not want to risk their privacy by using the gazebo have the option of using shared facilities 70 metres away. A-grade co-captain Elisa Hall said not having a courtside change room and toilet was particularly tough for young players. "They're still figuring out how long they can have a pad on or a tampon in without getting a leakage," she said. "If they get one, they have to walk past a footy oval, in front of everyone and a bunch of strangers while bleeding." Emery said girls tended to drop out of sport when they were about the age of 14 or 15. "We can obviously associate that with body changes," she said. "How are we expected to encourage girls to stay in sport when we can't even give them a bit of privacy?" Calls for council to step up According to the Surf Coast Shire Council's social infrastructure plan, the club may have to wait up to 12 years for dedicated courtside change rooms, toilets, shelter, storage, drinking water, umpire and first aid facilities. In the meantime, the council says the netballers can walk the 70 metres from the courts to nearby Grant Pavilion to access change rooms shared with football, hockey and soccer players. Hall said that simply was not workable. "There was one Saturday where we shared that change room with the junior footy, the soccer, us, and our opposing team," she said. "It's not ideal." She said 70 metres might not seem far, but it was a long way for a young netballer at night. "I can't trust my girls will be safe to go to the toilet during training," Hall said. "It's a very open, communally used space … so you don't know who's going to be there." The club's football president, Jay Williams, agreed. "We don't have any line of sight to toilets or things like that, so it's a real safety concern," he said. "We have girls and women getting changed in their car, which is pretty unacceptable in this day and age." Waiting a for decade or more The Surf Coast Suns team was established 10 years ago as a junior club to absorb increasing demand in Torquay, one of the fastest-growing towns in Victoria. This year the club fielded its first senior netball and football sides in the Bellarine league. But as other sports in the town have grown, netball has seemingly been forgotten, Mr Williams said. "The hockey club's just had a brand new pitch and they've got designs for brand new toilets, change rooms and admin rooms and netball's been left out," he said. Surf Coast Shire is planning to extend a nearby basketball stadium in the next 10 or 12 years, which would include netball change rooms. The council agrees facilities need to be improved, but placemaking and environment general manager Chris Pike said there were "differing views on the best solution". He said the council had been investigating whether the netballers could use the toilets at a nearby aquatic centre. Playing catch-up More than 1 million Australians play netball each year, making it the country's largest female team sport. According to the Australian Sports Commission's AusPlay data, about a quarter of Australia's 14 million females participate in a sport-related activity at least once a week. "All of a sudden female participation rates are booming and infrastructure decisions, which have been traditionally made around men, just haven't caught up," Deakin University associate professor Helen Brown said. The Australian Sports Commission senior research fellow has surveyed 325 women about barriers to playing sport. "Most of them said they'd either missed a training session or a game because of inadequate facilities for their periods," Dr Brown said. "They were really worried about 'what happens if I bleed and there's nowhere to go quickly' or if they're bleeding heavily, which is very prominent with a lot of young girls especially." She said spaces for period care, breastfeeding and changing clothes were vital. "Most community sporting facilities in Australia were built at a time when men's sport dominated everything from participation to membership and, as a result, all the change rooms and playing facilities are often just designed for men," Dr Brown said. "Each state does have female-friendly guidelines for policymakers and councils to use. "Whether or not they use them, I'm not sure." A room with a door On a dark and wet night water pools near the kit bags of the junior girls training for the Suns. Emery says they're not asking for a lot. "Just a simple change room — a room with a door that we can go into," she says. "Just for privacy, so no-one can view us changing dresses. "A tap to be able to fill up our water bottles would be fantastic, and the safety of walking to a toilet within 10 metres that's well lit and that isn't used predominantly by males." [Image text:] O SURFCOLST SUNS