The City of Melville Council has signed a new 21-year lease with Melville Bowling Club which it says will help ensure the club remains a viable community recreation facility.
The new lease replaces the former lease of 50 years, which was to expire in 2070 and in which the club was solely responsible for maintaining its leased area.
The Club enquired with the Council in March 2024 to vary the lease due in part to continued maintenance expenditure required for the ageing premises.
Under the new lease, the Council covers essential expenditure like maintenance of the premises and water and sewage rates.
Mayor, Katy Mair said the new agreement brings Melville Bowling Club in line with the City’s other bowling clubs, eases the club’s financial pressures, and helps ensure it survives as an important and much-loved community facility.
“The Melville Bowling Club is an intrinsic part of an arts and recreation precinct in that area, that also includes Atwell House and Tompkins Park,” said Mayor Mair.
“One of our five key outcomes in our Council Plan for the Future is to build a healthy, safe and inclusive community with a strong sense of belonging and wellbeing and this new agreement helps achieve that, by easing the financial burden on this club that’s been operating as part of the community for more than 60 years.
“We continue to be very interested in redeveloping the Club premises to create a financially viable, sustainable and community focused, accessible and energy efficient facility and the club is very enthusiastic to work with us on such a project.”
Melville Bowling Club president, Tim Cattle said the hard work of the former Melville Bowling Club administration in securing the previous 50-year lease has always been acknowledged, however it no longer served the needs of members moving forward.
“The clubrooms were built more than 60 years ago and need continued maintenance,” he said.
“The new agreement frees the club up to pursue grant funding previously out of its reach because its capital was spent on maintenance.
“This marks a new era for the club, has the support the membership and is a positive step forward in our relationship with the City of Melville.
“We certainly want to achieve a facility that is manageable and sustainable in the long term for the club and are doing as much as we can to involve more of the community; like our partnership with the Perth Saints Soccer Club which has been really successful.
“Along with our partnership with the Perth Saints Soccer Club, we have weekly Scrabble Club meetings, monthly Probus Club meetings, our community bowls is extremely popular and we’re offering bowls coaching to local schools while our premises are always available for bookings such as business functions, birthdays, special functions, wakes, – and of course social barefoot bowls.
“We’re looking forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the City of Melville and other sporting and community groups to create a community hub and increase the range of recreation and community uses and activities at the Melville Bowling Club,” he said.
