The grass is lush and evenly mowed, edges are manicured, the toilets are always clean and in general you get the sense the people looking after it take pride in their work.

However, a rumoured plan could see a new ground management approach taken and long-serving member and current chairperson of the Thomson Street Sporting Complex Management Committee, Roger Walker, can’t understand the need to change anything.

For more than 20 years a group of local Sussex Inlet residents, from the work for the dole program, had helped maintain the complex, along with a paid curator.

Mr Walker wants this arrangement to be kept.

“They do a great job and it’s not because they have to. They take pride in their work and want the facility to be good because it is used by their families,” he said.

Mr Walker described the curator and his team of workers as “dedicated”.

“They even whipper-snip underneath and around the benches. At some grounds they poison areas that can’t be reached by a mower,” Mr Walker said.

He said the current system had saved Shoalhaven City Council a lot of money as the caretakers only get $24,000 to look after the complex.

The work for the dole team has to do some community work to receive their unemployment benefits and Mr Walker said their options in Sussex Inlet were limited.

“Some of these people are over 60 years of age and when you reach that age it’s hard to get a job,” he said.

Mr Walker said many people involved in sport in the Shoalhaven would say Thomson Street was one of the best maintained sports facilities in the region.

He has been busy on the phone, trying to find information and answers.

He heard council wanted to get Corrective Services involved in maintaining the ground.

Mr Walker and the rest of the management committee want to sit down with council and discuss the issue.

No decision on the ground’s future upkeep has been made.