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The Gold Coast City Council’s plan to grow its sporting economy and make the Gold Coast a hub of sports events, training camps and community sport is thriving.

A progress report on the Gold Coast Sport Plan 2013-2023, presented recently to the Council’s Economic Development Committee, shows that the plan’s six major actions are all on track, with some milestones already being achieved.

Explaining that the plan to develop a more sustainable and inclusive sports economy was forging ahead, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate stated “among the achievements to date are the attraction of 27 training camps, generating $2.4 million for the local economy; allowing community use of school sports infrastructure; the attraction of new events to Metricon and C-Bus Super Stadiums; and some solid growth with Active and Healthy participants.”

Mayor Tate said the Council had also secured 30 new second and third tier sport events (for example, the under 15 National Girls Hockey) as well as exhibition games, via the Sport Business Investment Attraction Program, with an estimated direct economic return of almost $8.45 million.

Mayor Tate added “with the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games bringing a renewed focus on sport within the city, it’s important we position it as a hub of both professional and grassroots sporting activity.

“The Sport Plan aims to create a forward-thinking, collaborative approach to sport and recreation provision, from amateur to professional levels.

“In other words, it’s as much about keeping the local soccer club thriving as it is about bringing an international golf tournament to the city.”

The Sport Plan also won 2014 Economic Development Australia National Award for the best Business and Industry Development Project.

The six themes and goals of the Sport Plan, and a key achievement reached to date, are as follows:

1. Sport and recreation infrastructure: to create a sustainable sporting community with quality fit for purpose facilities – community use of school sports infrastructure.

2. Active and healthy community: to grow participation in sport and recreation within the city - increase in Active and Healthy participants from 160,000 to 178,000.

3. Sport and recreation industry: to build capacity and quality of sports organisations, clubs, educational institutions and businesses to deliver a sustainable and competitive sporting industry – a Memorandum of Understanding with the Queensland Government.

4. Thriving national sports codes: to support strong financially viable and competitive national sports codes who engage the community and lead the sport and recreation sector – attraction of new events to Metricon and C-Bus Super Stadiums.

5. Sports events destination: to build and leverage the city’s sports events portfolio to drive the economy and enhance the city reputation – the securing of the second and third tier events (as quoted above).

6. International connections through sport: to utilise opportunities in key sport markets by building international connections, attracting high performance training camps, sport business and sport tourism – the 25 training camps (as quoted above).

For more information click here to view the Gold Coast Sport Plan 2013 - 2023.

Top image shows the CBUS Super Stadium.

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