For a number of years I used to cycle past the old Hamilton North gasworks site as I commuted to work. I watched as structures were demolished and the site rehabilitated, and wondered about its future use. Back in January 2016 I wrote the following in an e-mail to Mark MacLean …

My 14 year old son is obsessed with sport, and particularly with cricket at the moment and he reckons “they” (the mythical “they” who ought to do stuff) should build a cricket ground in Newcastle capable of hosting Test, ODI and T20 matches. I set him a little task of speculative urban planning, on thinking where “they” could build such a stadium, and I suggested the old gasworks site. As a little experiment, we grabbed an image of the Sydney Cricket Ground and laid it over the gasworks site in Google Earth at the same scale to see if it would fit. Not only did it fit, it looks like it belongs there!

Fast forward to 2024 when there are plans afoot to take away green space from the community and convert existing playing fields into a new basketball stadium on Wallarah and Blackley Ovals. Surely the old gasworks site is a better choice? Using the same technique I used back in 2016, how would the planned basketball stadium fit?

Answer: It fits easily and with oodles of room left over for parking, green space, and future expansion.