PLA Regional Awards Submissions 2025

Monash University

Dr. Michael Butson is an affiliate at Monash University in the Faculty of Education and a secondary school teacher. His research focuses on the recruitment and retention of employees in aquatic and leisure facilities, as well as increasing leisure-time physical activity participation among older adults.

National Ageing Research Institute

Boroondara City Council

Knox City Council

The installation of Seniors Exercise Parks and the implementation of supportive programs across six upgraded parks have significantly increased park visitation and physical activity among older people. By transforming public spaces into age-friendly, active environments, the project has created vibrant community hubs in six Victorian municipalities, where older adults can gather, exercise, and socialise—promoting health, well-being, and stronger, more connected communities.

City of Wanneroo

Riverlinks Park All-Abilities Playground is one of Perth’s newest & largest play spaces, designed for children of all abilities. Spanning six unique environments, it offers a variety of play opportunities, sensory play, quiet areas, and a bike track. It integrates learning with play, about Perth’s water cycle and conservation. It also prioritizes accessibility, safety, and sustainability, featuring rest areas, clear sightlines, and waterwise plants. With over a hundred new trees enhancing the space, Riverlinks is a welcoming, educational, and eco-friendly destination for families across Perth.

City of Parramatta

City of Parramatta has committed to reduce inequality, increase opportunities and remove barriers to participation in sport for underrepresented groups (including women and girls), through the creation and adoption of the Sportsground Allocation Policy, which has the stated purpose of ensuring that Council will allocate the use of its Sportsgrounds in a systematic approach which aligns with Councils broader Sportsground Strategy and values, including to actively contribute to the health, wellbeing, equality, and inclusion of the whole community.

Maroondah City Council

The Maroondah Tennis Strategy provides a 10-year plan for collaborating with partners to improve the accessibility and inclusion of tennis in Maroondah, inform capital priorities and increase participation. Investing resources to build the capacity of tennis clubs, improve infrastructure and support opportunities for social and casual play will be key priorities to ensure that tennis as a sport continues to thrive in Maroondah.

Cumberland City Council

The Civic Park, Pendle Hill Upgrade revitalises a key urban park into an accessible, inclusive, and sustainable community space. Featuring enhanced wetlands, new playspaces, fitness zones, picnic areas, and improved pedestrian connectivity, the project balances environmental restoration with diverse recreational opportunities. Extensive community engagement shaped the design, ensuring it meets local needs while promoting urban cooling, biodiversity, and social interaction. This transformation delivers lasting benefits for Pendle Hill and future generations.

City of Swan

Advanteering Civil Engineers

Weitj Park is a $7.07M intergenerational playspace in Ballajura, supported by a $2M Lotterywest grant. Designed as an inclusive play space, it features sensory play elements, exercise stations, and culturally significant public art. The site, a former stormwater catchment, required an innovative drainage system for sustainability. Extensive community engagement ensured accessibility and cultural relevance. Delivered on time and within budget, Weitj Park exemplifies excellence in public infrastructure, fostering social connections and environmental stewardship.

City of Canada Bay

The Walk the Wangal Nature Trail is a transformative project enhancing biodiversity, climate resilience, and community engagement. Delivered by the City of Canada Bay, it restored a neglected biodiversity corridor, planting 60+ native species to support wildlife and urban cooling. It integrates Woody Meadows research, Indigenous knowledge, and community-led conservation. Supporting the Council NSW ‘Biodiversity in Place’ framework, it balances urban growth with green space, fostering sustainability, education, and long-term stewardship, setting a model for urban greening initiatives.

City of Canada Bay Council

The $5.72m Charles Heath Reserve Playground in Five Dock is a vibrant, inclusive space designed to serve a rapidly growing community. Featuring accessible play equipment, including ramps to climbing towers, it caters to children of all abilities. The park’s calming design, with muted colours and biophilic elements, promotes sensory comfort, especially for neurodiverse children. The playground also offers recreational areas, BBQ spots, and fitness equipment, making it a social hub for all ages. This community-focused space enhances well-being and fosters inclusivity.

City of Canada Bay Council

The Collating Our Canopy project was initiated to enhance urban canopy cover and improve tree management in the City of Canada Bay. By collecting data on 28,000 trees, including species, health, and size, the project enabled better planning for tree planting, risk management, and urban forest strategies. The integration of cloud-based Forestree platform transformed tree data to supporting the development of the City’s first Tree Asset Management Plan and improving decision-making across departments

City of Canada Bay Council

The $5.72m Charles Heath Reserve Community and Play Space in Five Dock is an inclusive, vibrant space for a growing community. With accessible play equipment, including ramps to climbing towers, it supports children of all abilities. Its calming design with muted colours and biophilic elements caters to neurodiverse children. The park also features recreational areas, BBQ spots, fitness equipment, and accessible amenities making it a social hub for all ages and promoting well-being, inclusivity, and community connection.

City of Swan

The Swan Active Midland refurbishment is a $30 million transformation of a vital community facility, delivering state-of-the-art aquatic, fitness, and recreational spaces. Featuring an expanded gym, upgraded pools, inclusive change rooms, modern sports courts, a crèche, and a vibrant café, the centre promotes health, social connection, and accessibility. Sustainability was a key focus, with energy-efficient designs reducing environmental impact. This project enhances community pride, supporting active lifestyles while setting a benchmark for inclusive, & sustainable public infrastructure.

City of Melville

Nature Play Solutions

The Amphitheatre at Piney Lakes is a unique inclusive playspace within Melville. It is a small welcoming space, magically set, where people of all abilities can play and interact alongside their family, friends and community. It showcases bespoke accessible play elements that incorporate and celebrate the surrounding natural environment.

Federation University

Australian Sports Commission

The Cost to Deliver and Play Sport research project is a national study investigating the cost to play sport and the costs for local clubs to deliver community sport.

City of Whittleseea

Timbertop Park marks a new approach to playground renewal for local councils. Housing estate playgrounds are often over-designed for marketing, making replacement within budget a challenge when it’s due for renewal. The existing playground at Timbertop Park was small, underwhelming, and in poor condition. The shelter, on the other hand, was over-designed, with significant investment in its sculptural steel poles that, while visually striking, did little to enhance the park’s functionality. This highlighted the need for a more creative, sustainable approach to renewals. Projects should focus on

City of Whittleseea

McGregor Coxall

Convic

Led by a forward- thinking master plan, Whittlesea Public Gardens has transformed from its aspirations as a traditional botanic garden into a vibrant regional park that blends structured and unstructured recreation with nature. The redesign introduces urban playrooms linked by a central spine, creating a multifunctional space to serve a diverse community while strengthening connections to the broader open space network. This redevelopment meets the evolving needs of a growing population, fostering inclusivity, community wellbeing, and environmental resilience for a lasting impact.

City of Melville

Bicton Substation Playspace is a community-driven project that blends traditional playground elements with imaginative, nature-inspired features. Designed with an edible garden theme, it incorporates fruit trees, bush tucker plants, and sensory play areas, promoting environmental awareness and childhood development. The park’s inclusive design caters to all ages and abilities, offering a versatile space for recreation, learning, and social connection. This cherished local asset exemplifies the City of Melville’s vision of creating vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive community spaces.

SA Water

The Accessible Outdoors Program provides activities that promote and enable a deeper connection to nature for people with disability in our national parks, reservoir reserves, and forest reserves.

East Gippsland Shire Council

Orbost's Forest Park showcases Orbost in a contemporary and historic way. The revitalisation of the play space has blended into the historic landscape of the surrounding parkland while complementing the architectural feature of the neighbouring Orbost Arts Centre. Using natural materials and visually pleasing play elements, Forest Park is the destination for locals and visitors.

Blacktown City Council

The Blacktown City Beach Volleyball facility is breaking boundaries, proving that world-class beach volleyball doesn’t need an ocean nearby. Located more than 30 km from the coast, this first-of-its-kind venue in Western Sydney was made possible by a bold project team and partnership with Volleyball NSW and community. Their vision has created an inclusive space for all levels of the volleyball community, redefining accessibility and innovation in sports infrastructure.

Blacktown City Council

Currently, Australian local councils do not plant large shade trees on streets with speeds above 50km/hr. This is because current guidelines state large shade trees present a safety risk to errant vehicles. However, the guidelines only consider one risk – the risk to the errant vehicle. It also does not consider the risks of planting versus not planting trees along our streets. This multi-year, data-driven project changed that and improved the risk-based approach to how and where we plant trees along our streets to keep all road users safe from all risks.

Merri-bek City Council

Yubup Park, Brunswick, transforms an industrial site into a thriving community space. Aligned with Merri-bek City Council’s Park Close to Home framework, it ensures equitable access to open space in a growing urban area. The park blends heritage conservation with sustainable design, featuring deep soil planting, preserved industrial structures, and diverse social spaces for relaxation and play. Funded through developer contributions and state support, Yubup Park enhances well-being, fosters social connection, and serves as a model for innovative urban renewal.

City of Launceston (Council)

The Launceston Pump Track exemplifies best-practice, community-led design, resulting in a high-quality recreational asset that is inclusive and accessible to users of all ages, skill levels, and abilities.

Blacktown City Council

Blacktown City Council partnered with Transport for NSW for the Safer Cities: Her Way Program, which aimed to make public spaces, including streets and transport hub precincts, feel safer for everyone, especially women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Council delivered a Her Way project, implementing of a range of pilot public space improvements and events guided by community input. Our pilot public space improvements were influenced by our engagement with over 160 women, girls, and gender diverse people about their experiences of using public spaces around Blacktown station.

SPORTENG

SPORTENG led the design and delivery of the Fortitude Drive Reserve sports field, transforming a greenfield site into a world-class athletics facility for Wyndham City Council. The project features a Class 2-certified polyurethane athletics track, a high-quality natural turf infield, and a multi-purpose kickabout space designed for future synthetic hockey field integration. Supporting infrastructure, including LED sports lighting, an advanced irrigation system, and a strategically planned car park, ensures long-term functionality and accessibility.

Clarence Valley Council

The Clarence Regional Aquatic Centre is the heart of the community, replacing the former Grafton Olympic Pool which was over 60 years old. A new facility which meets the needs of the community was required. Planning commenced in 2016 with community engagement, masterplanning, detailed design and concluded with the construction of a new state of the art facility which includes an outdoor 50m pool and 600 seat grandstand, an indoor 25m heated pool, a combined heated indoor program and leisure pool, a splash pad, accessible amenities and parents room as well as landscaped areas.

Melton City Council

The Diggers Rest Recreation Reserve Redevelopment is a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose facility designed to support sports clubs and the broader community. It features gender-equitable, fully accessible, and environmentally sustainable design, promoting inclusivity and climate resilience.

SPORTENG

SPORTENG helped St Joseph’s College upgrade its sports facilities to support the growing student population and sporting excellence. The new precinct features durable surfaces for sports like football, rugby, and athletics, providing year-round access for students and local clubs. The multi-use space also hosts community events, promoting active lifestyles and local connections.

SPORTENG

SPORTENG played a key role in the redevelopment of Brennan Oval at Peninsula Grammar, creating a high-quality sporting facility to meet the needs of both students and the local community. The facility supports elite athletic performance and offers space for sports such as athletics and soccer. With its state-of-the-art features, including an organic infill synthetic soccer field, the facility also promotes sustainability. It is designed to host regional and state-level competitions, providing opportunities for local teams and helping all athletes develop their potential.

Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action

Overseen by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), the Victorian Government’s ‘More Trees for a Cooler, Greener West’ program seeks to plant 500,000 trees in Melbourne’s west, creating cooler spaces for communities to enjoy for generations. This $11.95 million initiative provides shade, green spaces, and reduces pollution, urban heat, and improves air quality. The program contributes to Victoria’s world-leading emissions reduction targets, supporting the goal of net zero emissions by 2045.