Pioneers Park is a popular sporting field in Malabar. The fields are divided into the upper park and lower park. The upper park is used for AFL and cricket, while the lower park is primarily used for rugby league.

Council is undertaking redevelopment of the lower fields to create a new synthetic playing field and new natural grass surface field.

The synthetic field will be an all-weather playing surface, and will result in more opportunity for community groups to take advantage of this facility throughout the seasons, with less cancellations needed due to wet weather. Plus, the redevelopment of the sports field will reduce maintenance costs.

Work on the field began early December and is expected to be complete in May this year.

The first step to preparing the field is to kill off the existing grass and remove a layer of top soil in order to prepare the base layers for the new sports fields. Historically, this site was used as a landfill area and in the past it has been found to have asbestos containing materials. Considering this, we have an external Hygienist and Environmental Engineer (JBSG) monitoring the site conditions while we're removing the base layer of soil. Four air monitoring systems are installed around the perimeter of the park to test for air-borne fibres while this stage of the work takes place.

Each day we receive a report from the environmental engineer letting us know the air is in satisfactory condition. We post these reports here on our website daily.

Once the top layer of soil has been prepared, the new fields will begin to be installed. There are three fields in this location. One we are leaving as it is, another one we are replacing the turf and the middle one we're installing synthetic grass.

If you'd like further information about the work being done at Pioneers Park, please refer to our Major Projects Page.