WHEN the second biggest flood in 118 years hits a town, it is time to look outside the square.

Does that mean that the Warwick Hockey Association could be moved to Mayhew Oval at Slade School where an international standard water-based synthetic surface and some grass fields could be built well away from any possible flooding?

Events bring an enormous amount of money into the town and clearly this flood has ended hopes of Warwick hosting the state men’s veterans hockey championships this season.

This is a town steeped in hockey tradition from the days when Cec Anstey, Jack White and Ron Carrie rose to national prominence in the sport to more recent times when Lee Bodimeade and Dean Butler won Olympic medals.

The Australian men’s team came here to train before the Sydney Olympics, Warwick has hosted Australian Hockey League games and most importantly we want kids to play sport.

Without synthetic, Warwick hockey will go back decades and income from events will plummet.

I thought about the Slade option a few days ago and without any prompting, a lot of people are saying the same thing.

There is pressure to encourage the State Government to buy Slade School as a second campus for Warwick State High School.

If it becomes an option for hockey, that makes the government show its hand, if it has one, about high school overcrowding.

Last week, I spoke to Mayor Ron Bellingham about a higher levy bank around the hockey property. He wasn’t sold on the idea but asked “how high?” – a fair question in the wake of floods in the past couple of years.

What is wrong with looking at the Slade option for hockey now?

The regional council already has a Condamine River sports master plan which would cost many times the cost of relocating hockey.

A hockey move to the oval area at Slade School would free up the hockey fields for cricket or other sports.

This is also the time to reassess the master plan for the Condamine River sports facilities.

It seems there are areas of our sporting ovals which bear the brunt of the water, such as the toilet block near the Cowboys which was damaged in the flood and demolished at the weekend.

All this information needs to be linked to the master plan.

The Warwick Cowboys clubhouse is one of the main function venues in town. We just can’t see the damage which happened this time happen again and sap all that club enthusiasm.

The Redbacks AFL club on the eastern side of the river needs to look seriously at flood heights for its proposed clubhouse.

Plenty of clubs are hurting and the facilities of each have to be looked at in relation to floods.

If the hockey synthetic is rebuilt at Queens Park, I suspect there will be concerns each time it rains.

Anything from outside the square needs to be looked at in great detail right now.