Central Park lighting

In 2025, the City of Stonnington installed six low-spill floodlights on 25m lighting towers around the John Landy Oval at Central Park, Malvern East.

Installation of the new floodlights came off the back of two rounds of consultation in 2021 and 2022 in which the community indicated significant support for the lights.

Works commenced in March 2025 and were completed in July 2025 with minimal disruption to the oval. The lights were officially turned on at 6.00pm 3 September 2025.

Floodlight operations 

During winter the floodlights will operate between 5:00pm – 9:00pm Monday to Friday, supporting scheduled sports and active recreation. 

As natural daylight is limited during the cooler months, the lights help to extend the safe and accessible use of the oval, so community members can continue to enjoy sporting activities into the evening. 

During summer the floodlights will not be in operation as daylight saving provides sufficient lighting, making additional evening lighting unnecessary. 

Background

In 2019 a Parks Service Review was completed to collect ideas from the community on areas where we could make improvements to our parks.

Feedback from the 2019 Parks Service Review listed lighting at Central Park as something that would improve the park, with the lack of lighting contributing to a perception of the park being unsafe, particularly at night.

Central Park's John Landy oval was one of only a few sporting grounds without lighting, which severely limited the hours of use for community recreation and sporting clubs based at the oval.

To address the safety and usability concerns, we proposed to install state-of-the-art park lighting that is low-spill (so illumination will not encroach beyond the oval) and has adjustable lighting levels.

The adjustable lighting means the illumination can be increased when the oval is being used for activities such as sports training or decreased to suit other recreation activities such as jogging, exercising or dog walking.