Plans for a new $1.45 million roof at the leaky Shellharbour City Stadium have been put on hold after it was revealed the stadium could potentially be demolished to make way for the new Albion Park Rail bypass.
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After years of frustration with regular cancellations in wet weather, the indoor stadium's user groups had the champagne ready before Tuesday night's Shellharbour council meeting, at which a report recommended the council spend $1.45 million on a new roof to rectify its problems.
However, the champagne remains on ice after Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) last week confirmed that an existing corridor would be used for the proposed bypass of Albion Park Rail.
That corridor hooks around the Croom Regional Sporting Complex to connect with the East West Link, but RMS said the area near the sporting complex would be "further investigated" to ensure the corridor could incorporate "current road design standards".
According to RMS, the existing LEP corridor is based on a design speed standard of 100km/h, however, current design standards state that a design speed of 110km/h should be adopted.
To achieve the 110km/h speed, the bend around the complex would need to be larger or straightened.
Making the bend larger would see the road push outside the existing corridor and make the bypass - which is already three kilometres longer than the current route - longer still.
Straightening the bend would mean cutting through the sports complex, potentially taking out the cricket field and junior rugby league fields, the indoor stadium and new netball courts which are currently being built, with impacts for several other facilities in the complex including Centenary Field, which is the South Coast Group Seven rugby league competition's premier ground.
Shellharbour council's corporate policy director Lee Furness said the RMS review, which showed a potential impact on the sports complex, was released after the stadium roof report was prepared.
"We want to better understand the impacts and timing before we commit substantial money for a new roof ... at this stage we just don't know," Ms Furness said.
She said the council would meet with RMS next week to get a better understanding of the state government's plans, with another council report on the future of the stadium's roof scheduled to be tabled in February.
