The population of Greater Melbourne is forecast to double to 9 million by 2056. Royal Park’s size, location, existing infrastructure and natural spaces means it can provide many benefits for the people who visit, particularly those engaging in activities that support their health and wellbeing. It also has the capacity to contribute to reducing the health impacts of climate change, particularly extreme heat, by providing areas of relative cool in the hot urban environment.

Royal Park has a long history of being a place for participation in community sport and recreation, both organised and unstructured. It is a place to play organised sport, play casual games, a place to walk or run, or a place to have a picnic or watch birdlife. It supports play, discovery, spontaneity and reflection. It needs to be a place for all ages and abilities.

Informal recreation is the largest use of Royal Park, with non-structured activities including walking, running, sitting, reading, children’s play, keeping fit, dog walking, having picnics, birdwatching, cycling and exploring. As a park of State significance it attracts people from a local, regional and state catchment.

Royal Park has cultural heritage significance to the state of Victoria as a venue for sporting competitions from the 1850s and is particularly associated with women’s sporting history. Royal Park was an important venue for women’s cricket from the early 1900s, girls played netball in the park from the late 1920s and Poplar Oval was the home of women’s amateur athletics from the mid-1930s. Sport has been played in Royal Park from at least the 1850s, with cricket and Australian football having the earliest records. The Royal Park golf course was one of the earliest established on public land in Victoria, in 1903.

Sporting activities at Royal Park tended to be those that required large areas of space that retained an ‘open’ character of the reserve. Tennis courts are the exception to this general rule; the earliest tennis courts were built in Royal Park proper in 1925.

Facilities for community sport and recreation remain a significant part of Royal Park. Some 4500 people are members of sports clubs playing on fields and courts in Royal Park. Royal Park includes 14 outdoor turf playing fields (used for football, soccer, cricket, baseball, rugby, touch rugby and lacrosse), 17 tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course and the Melbourne Sports Centre Parkville (netball and hockey).

More than half of City of Melbourne residents (53 per cent) do not engage in the recommended amount of physical activity and around one fifth (22 per cent) spend more than eight hours sitting on an average weekday. These figures highlight how supporting participation in physical activity is a significant health concern for the city.

Social isolation and loneliness is also a rising concern, reinforcing the importance of providing opportunities for community connection. Community connection could be supported through having places and destinations in the park that are welcoming and accessible to all.

Participation in community sport and recreation at Royal Park remains high, however several sports fields have been removed from the park since the mid-1990s and there is significant demand on the remaining facilities. Many are operating very near capacity.