Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrived in Riverside on Friday to help announce the prospective funding, which would see a new multi-purpose oval shared between Launceston Christian School and West Tamar Council.

The new ground would be situated to the north of the Riverside Cricket Club and would be available to the public outside of school hours.

West Tamar Council mayor Christina Holmdahl said the collaborative project had been the result of the availability of school land and the council’s need for another sports ground.

“It's a win-win for everybody because the school gets a much-needed oval and most of the user groups that would use that oval would not do it in school hours, that's the beauty of it,” Cr Holmdahl said.

“It’s going to be a very high quality oval so we see it getting lots of use after school hours and at the weekends, and during school hours it would be exclusively the domain of the school.”

The precinct currently houses a number of sporting clubs including Launceston Football Club, Riverside Cricket Club and Riverside Olympic Soccer Club. 

Cr Holmdahl said the oval would provide an important facility for community groups and could be available to the public as early as this year. 

“We were hoping that if all went to plan it would be ready for the next major sports season in the spring or summer. 

“As I understand it the process is that once the ground is actually designed, there's a lot of infrastructure that goes under the oval, and once all of that is in place and it’s levelled it takes some time to settle before it can be used.”

Cr Holmdahl said the precinct’s popularity within the Launceston sporting community would undoubtedly have helped secure the funding.

“The facilities that we're establishing at the West Tamar Community Precinct are not just for our ratepayers, these are facilities that are used by sports clubs from the greater Launceston area.

“We are providing a regional facility and I think that was probably also recognised in the approval of the grant.”

Launceston Christian School could not be contacted for comment on Friday.