Council Minutes - Town of Cambridge

COUNCIL MINUTES
TUESDAY 20 DECEMBER 2011
CR11.163 FEE REVIEW 2011 - WEMBLEY GOLF COURSE
PURPOSE OF REPORT:
To review the fees applied at the Wembley Golf Course (WGC), and implement a new fee
structure effective from 1 January 2012.
BACKGROUND:
The fees charged at WGC are reviewed on an annual basis as decided by Council in February
1996. To allow for any price increases other golf facilities may have implemented during the
previous year, the review period commences on 1 January annually.
Fees at WGC are benchmarked against nine other public golf courses in the metropolitan area.
Wembley has in the past increased fees where applicable to bring it in line with other courses to
cover increasing maintenance and dividend costs.
A schedule of fees charged at WGC and a competitive analysis is provided as Confidential
Attachment 2.
DETAILS:
The pricing policy adopted by Council in past reviews has been to increase the fees charged at
WGC to be comparable with other public courses.
Many of the golf courses that WGC benchmarks against have increased prices this year,
reflecting the continuing increase in costs to maintain a golf facility. Increasing fuel, labour and
material costs impact on the maintenance budgets of all golf courses.
In 2010/2011 there was a decrease of approximately 12% in golf course patronage. This was
caused by a number of factors, including, but not limited to:-
Disruption from stage 1 development works. Most notably the Golf Shop not opening until
September 2010 and car park works work not completed until late November 2010;
Record hot weather in early 2011; and
Global downturn in golf participation.
However, an upside has been in relation to the Swing Driving Range. The Swing Driving Range
opened in August 2011 and in its first year of operation has seen over 80,000 visits and eight
million golf balls hit.
An overview of the golf participation, driving range participation and income is provided as
Confidential Attachment 3.
A series of Tables highlighting current and proposed fees for the WGC are provided as
Attachment 1.
1.0 Current Fees
Although competitively priced, the fees at Wembley are now at the higher of industry averages
for 9 and 18 hole rounds, including concessional fees.
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