JJ Kelly Park is one of Wollongong’s premier sports grounds and was effectively unusable by rugby league and football sport codes over the last two years due to flooding from heavy rain events.

Member for Wollongong, Paul Scully said Wollongong City Council would receive $200,000 to improve and upgrade the sports field drainage at JJ Kelly Park.

“I have shared the concerns of many parents that the couple of years of wet weather has had such an impact on the lack of availability by their children to access sports fields across Wollongong.

“Improving drainage at JJ Kelly Park will mean surface water will disappear and kids can get back on the field more quickly.

“The fact that the NSW Liberals Government deliberately froze out the Wollongong local government area from sports infrastructure funding programs for several years means we are forced to play catch-up to get our local sports grounds up to scratch.

“This funding commitment will enable work to begin on upgrading the drainage at JJ Kelly Park so it can be used as an all-weather park”, he said.

Mr Scully also announced a $100,000 funding commitment for lighting upgrades to John Crehan Park at Cringila.

“Home of the Cringila Lions FC, John Crehan Park is a multi-use stadium which can hold nearly 8000 spectators.

“This funding commitment will help with the replacement of existing lighting and their relocation to a second ground which effectively doubles the night-time capacity of the facility, allowing them to catering for additional training and competition games.

“This is great news for the football capital of the Illawarra - Cringila”, he said.

Council and Football South Coast have identified these two projects on their infrastructure priorities list, but funding had not been allocated to them.