Newcastle council says New Lambton sports fields are the only available site for the city's proposed new basketball stadium after ruling out the former Shortland tip as a location.
Newcastle Basketball lodged an application late last year to build the Hunter Indoor Sports Centre on Wallarah and Blackley ovals in Turton Road, prompting a backlash from nearby residents, Lambton High School parents and the sports clubs that use the fields.
City of Newcastle staff, NSW Office of Sport representatives and Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery visited the former council tip in Astra Street, Shortland, last week to gauge its suitability as an alternative site.
A council spokesperson said on Wednesday that the landfill site was being remediated through to 2030 in line with NSW Environment Protection Authority regulatory requirements.
"The site's former use as a landfill facility means it is unlikely to be suitable for major development as the landform is unstable, the zoning doesn't allow major development and the site is steep and undulating," a council spokesperson said.
Newcastle Basketball plans to build 12 indoor courts, three of which can be converted to a show court, and parking for 205 cars to replace its dilapidated stadium at Broadmeadow.
The association received $25 million in NSW government funding in 2019 for a new stadium, but rising constructions costs mean the grant will pay for only a first stage of six courts.
Newcastle Basketball failed in its application for $15 million in funding from the first round of the Commonwealth Growing Regions Program announced in May.
The council spokesperson said the state government had advised that "it is not possible to retain the facility within its Hunter Park sporting precinct".
"The Office of Sport and Newcastle Basketball approached City of Newcastle in 2022 to discuss possible sites for the facility in the Newcastle local government area," the spokesperson said.
"As the Office of Sport's grant funding does not provide for purchasing land, the criteria for sites included public ownership (either council-owned or Crown land), minimum land size to cater for the facility, appropriate site zoning and proximity to existing transport infrastructure.
"The only site that met the criteria is Wallarah Oval, which is Crown land under City of Newcastle's care and control."
The Newcastle Herald asked the Office of Sport why Hunter Park could not accommodate a new basketball stadium but did not receive a response by deadline.
The council said it supported Newcastle Basketball's efforts to find a new home but had raised concerns about parking, traffic and flooding issues at the New Lambton site "which need to be quantified and addressed through the development application process".
The association's drawn-out search for a new home has the potential to delay the government's push for high-rise housing on the existing basketball stadium site.
The Young Road site is one of three the government has identified for high-priority land rezonings to allow for apartment towers under the Broadmeadow "place strategy".
The basketball centre land, which is owned by the government, has the tallest proposed height limits of the three redevelopment sites with potential for 40-storey buildings.
Newcastle Basketball general manager Matt Neason told the Herald last year that the association would have to operate from both the Broadmeadow centre and the new stadium until it had enough funding and development approval for the full project.
Mr Neason left Newcastle Basketball in May.
The Newcastle Falcons NBL1 teams will continue to play out of the 53-year-old Broadmeadow stadium until a new show court is built, which Mr Neason said would take at least five years unless the association received more funding.
