THE Melville Oval upgrades are one step closer to reality with the plans officially released this week.

Many of the Melville Oval stakeholders were on hand to check out the final design including Hamilton Kangaroos Football Netball Club chairman, Lachy Patterson, who said it was an exciting time for everyone involved.

“It is going to be a fantastic asset not just for the Hamilton Kangaroos but the wider Hamilton community,” he said.

“We are extremely pleased the plans cater for all our men, female and all abilities teams.

“I think the proposed structure will certainly complement a wonderful ground and I think it is also going to be beneficial for other sporting and user groups.”

With much of the consulting already done, the start of construction works is not far away.

“We are excited about it starting at some point soon; we understand there will be some difficulties around the football and netball season,” Patterson said.

“It will be a great addition to the Hampden Football Netball League suite of grounds and hopefully it means down the track we can have Hampden league finals and other major games here.”

Wannon MP, Dan Tehan said he was excited to see the project come to life over the next 12-18 months.

“Now we’ve done the design work, we’re able to look at the new grandstand the new change rooms and of course the new netball courts, so it’s wonderful to see the $4 million now in plans and even greater news the fact that come May (or) June, the bulldozers will be here and we’ll begin work on what will be a wonderful new facility,” he said.

“Melville Oval is the centrepiece sporting facility for Hamilton and the region, we were just talking just then about how it brings cricketers from around Australia here obviously, for Hampden League games here for football and netball and we’re going to have a wonderful facility where the community can come and hold functions and events as well.

“New changerooms for both males and females will just make it a fantastic local sporting precinct, which is what we wanted to see.

“The hope would be that we would get the bulldozers in May/June then hopefully it will be ready for next football season which would be next absolutely wonderful.

“There’ll be a new catering facility as well as an upgrade of the grandstand, so that’s the bulk of it.”