WACA loses another board member as redevelopment rises to $170mill

EXCLUSIVE

The WA Cricket Association is set to lose a seventh board member in less than a year with deputy chairman Eva Skira to quit this month.

Skira will follow the exit of Audit and Risk committee chairman David Bailey who stood down this month and is likely to be replaced at the next board meeting.

Both Skira and Bailey were board-appointed directors and were members of the vital A&R committee overseeing a ground redevelopment that is already costed at $170 million and will see the historic East Perth ground reduced to a capacity of about 15,000.

Lord mayor Basil Zempilas used his column in The West Australian today to confirm that the swimming pool to be built at the western end of the WACA Ground had blown out to $47.5 million.

The State government announced this week that a further $32.5 million would be given to the WACA to complement the initial $70 million commitment reported in the WACA annual report last September.

The Federal government ($30 million) and Cricket Australia ($4 million) have also made commitments while the WA Cricket Foundation is budgeted to raise $11 million. It hasn’t reached $1 million yet.

The departures of Skira and Bailey means that more than half the WACA board have quit since last May. Chairman Terry Waldron, former Test players Graeme Wood and Mike Veletta, Colleen Hayward and Nicola Brandon have resigned in the past 11 months.

Board member and prominent lawyer Tom Percy, whose recent bid to replace Waldron as chairman failed after a split board vote saw Avril Fahey elected, is overseeing an investigation into the spate of resignations.

That inquiry is not expected to report until the middle of the year. IMAGE: FILE