Tamworth Regional Council has drafted a new future for some sports after a lengthy consultation period over the past two years with nine different major city sports groups.

The new planning strategies were tabled last night with a recommendation Tamworth Minor League (rugby league) move from its old headquarters to new grounds at Carter St in the Riverside area where it will share space with the city’s Oztag sport.

Down the road from there, if the game plan goes to plan, the Tamworth District Football Club (soccer) will shift to the Gipps St end of the sports precinct and share a new home ground with Tamworth Touch.

TRC’s sports working group, which includes delegates from NSW Sport and Recreation departments and NIAS, as well as TRC planning and councillor reps, is pushing a plan it says will take sport to another level in

Tamworth.

TRC sport and recreation development coordinator Simon Haire says the new strategy makes plenty of sporting sense, particularly in relation to future player prospects, trends, and economic and social benefits.

It will bring a new era of sporting partnerships that can drive increased player numbers and cut down or conserve maintenance and infrastructure costs.

Under the radical new partner plan, the league players will go to the newly-created Plain St playing fields that have been created from the new levee bank and Taminda road network that will see Carter St closed at Jewry St and fields spread across from the levee bank right through to the gully near the baseball Field of Dreams.

There will be six fully-sized rugby league fields created there with another three junior fields and three more cricket wickets.

Earthworks will start in a couple of months and the grounds will be ready to play on for the winter 2009 season.