City invites public input on booking of arenas and sports fields

Residents of Ottawa are invited to an open house on Tuesday, June 23 at the Jim Durrell Recreation Centre, 1265 Walkley Road, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. to discuss the City’s facility allocation policy in relation to the use of arenas, sports fields and ball diamonds.

The City is presently reviewing its existing policy to examine how facility space is booked. The goal of this review is to ensure the policy and practices are equitable to existing and new user groups. Consultations with existing organizations that purchase time on City sports fields and arena ice pads were held earlier in June.

The City is now interested in hearing from users of these facilities not directly involved in the booking process, new groups not yet using City facilities, community associations and members of the general public with an interest in the use of recreation facilities.

Currently, more than 1,200 groups use the City’s 45 indoor ice pads, 550 sports fields and 350 ball diamonds for activities that include hockey, figure skating, ringette, football, soccer, Ultimate, field hockey, lacrosse, baseball, softball, slo-pitch and T-ball.

For a listing of City of Ottawa recreation facilities, visit ottawa.ca .