Council to vote on tennis centre funding application to replace ‘dire’ courts

An application for State Government funding for a pared-back Albany Community Tennis Centre project will go before the City of Albany Council next week. The project is the only application requiring a ranking from the council before it is submitted for consideration in the next round of the State Government’s Community Sporting and Recreation Facilities Fund grants. The application will be for $488,667 of funding to develop a six-court community tennis centre in the eastern precinct of the Centennial Park Sporting Precinct. Lower Great Southern Tennis Association president Les Bairstow said the conditions of the existing courts in Albany was dire. He said the LGSTA had been pushing for the project for the past seven years. “The two inner-city clubs, Merrifield and Lawley, have not been able to do any work on the courts based on the anticipation of a tennis centre coming,” he said. “All funding from Government departments was put on hold because we wanted to direct it towards the tennis centre, which we all understood, but the process has taken a little longer than what we initially expected. “A feasibility study done 18 months ago indicated that both the clubs have reached their end of life and that’s the basis of what this project has been scoped on.” Two previous applications for CSRFF grants for the tennis centre have been knocked back, with feedback suggesting a significant funding gap was a barrier to their success. Last year’s application requested $944,000 to carry out a 10-court project costed at $2.8 million, while the first application in 2020 sought a contribution for a $4.8m 16-court project. “We’ll start it with six courts, then the plan is to scope it out to another four, which will take us to 10,” Mr Bairstow said. “We’ve been working really closely with the City of Albany and they understand that as the population continues to grow we’re going to have to keep adding more courts. “We all understand that this staged approach is the way to go — almost every project these days has to be staged and you can’t get everything at once.” An allocation of $642,000, made up of $542,000 cash and $100,000 of in-kind contributions, for the project has been included in the City’s 2022-23 budget. The City has received an indication from the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries that the project would be supported as a high priority at a regional level. Mr Bairstow said the LGSTA was able to drive home the need for the new tennis centre during a recent meeting with Sport and Recreation Minister David Templeman. “He was super, super-supportive of the project,” he said. “We took him through the existing facilities that we have that are falling apart and he extremely aware of our need to get this over the line and get something started. “We had a fantastic meeting, so we are hopeful and we’ve done everything we can do.” A regional tennis centre feasibility study was originally completed in 2019, and a subsequently reworked project scope was endorsed by the City council in September 2020. Mr Bairstow said the City had been “wonderfully” supportive of the project from day one “It’s all about moving forward to futureproof our sport down here, really,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of juniors playing at the moment, and three or four of them are rocketing along pushing for State teams, so we have to provide these facilities so they have something to aspire to.”