Ballina Shire Council is about to hold an extraordinary meeting on a croquet dispute — despite having no power to change the outcome.

Under NSW Government guidelines, extraordinary meetings are reserved for urgent or significant matters that cannot reasonably wait until the next scheduled meeting, and the resolution calling such a meeting is expected to clearly outline that urgency.

In this case, it is difficult to see where that urgency lies.

Cherry Street Sports has made its position clear, the mayor has already written seeking reconsideration, and the response has been equally clear — the decision will stand.

That should, in any practical sense, have been the end of the matter.

Instead, it is being brought back for debate through an urgency motion put forward by the Greens’ Kiri Dicker, with the support of C Ward councillors Simon Chate and Therese Crollick.

Notably, none of the councillors backing this motion are from A Ward, where the Cherry Street facility is located, and that in itself is telling.

While councillors are elected to represent the whole shire, there has long been a convention in Ballina that, particularly when invoking urgency, councillors tend to stick to their patch and focus on matters within their own ward — the areas they know best and where their direct accountability lies.

This is not their patch.

Yet they have chosen to step into a dispute outside their ward and elevate it to the level of an extraordinary meeting, despite knowing that council has no authority to compel a different outcome.

At the same time, there are very real and pressing issues within their own wards that demand attention.

Community organisations and sporting groups, particularly across the plateau, continue to struggle for members, volunteers and long-term sustainability, and those challenges have been well documented.

To her credit, Cr Dicker was part of an earlier push to work with council staff and the community to organise forums aimed at helping local clubs survive and grow — an initiative that recognised the genuine pressures facing grassroots organisations.

That work mattered, and it should have continued.

It hasn’t happened in C Ward, because councillors there including Chate and Crollick have not taken the lead to make it happen.

Yet they have found the time to involve themselves in this dispute.

Across Ballina Shire, there are dozens — in reality, many more — sporting clubs and community organisations working constructively with council to secure facilities, build participation and ensure their long-term future.

Some are out on weekends running sausage sizzles at Bunnings just to keep the lights on.

Others are raising funds over years to secure grounds of their own.

In the case of local squash players, when their commercial facility was lost to redevelopment, they banded together, raised the money and set about establishing a new complex themselves.

That is what community sport looks like.

It is collaborative.

It is resilient.

And it requires compromise.

Against that backdrop, the croquet dispute looks very different.

For years, the Ballina Croquet Club has had access to maintained greens and a clubhouse, supported through a broader model that helps fund and sustain community sport.

Fees were kept low.

Facilities were maintained.

The opportunity to play remained.

Everything was effectively laid out for them — and all that was required was the ability to get along with others and share the space – and they couldn’t even manage that.

The only thing that has changed is the structure, with a unified model designed to increase access and participation.

That may not suit everyone.

But it is not uncommon in community sport.

What is uncommon is the level of escalation that has followed.

Rather than accepting a lawful decision and adapting, the dispute has intensified, moving from internal disagreement to public campaign and now into the council chamber.

Cherry Street Sports Group has made a decision within its authority and has chosen to draw a line under a long-running dispute.

Rather than being criticised, the board deserves credit.

At some point, decisions have to be made — and communities are best served by moving forward.

This extraordinary meeting will not change that outcome.

What it will seek to do is create the appearance of action, without the ability to deliver a different result.

And at a time when council is facing budget pressures and communities are dealing with far more pressing challenges, that should give ratepayers pause.

Ballina deserves better than that and ratepayers are entitled to expect it.

Earlier Story:

Extraordinary meeting called to debate croquet dispute — with no power to alter outcome