Edinburgh disappointment

EGM votes on the health of our game

The Grange Cricket Club held an EGM on Thursday 3 December to debate the proposal that a two-court centre should be built on spare land at their cricket ground, which is close to downtown Edinburgh. Sadly, lobbyists against the motion secured the day for the time being, with a 60-56 vote against tennis courts being built. This is at least the second such setback in Edinburgh for Angus Crichton-Miller and Francis Hamilton.

One of the key themes aired by the 'antis' was that it was hard to find evidence that tennis courts could be profitable enough to pay rent (in this case ground rent only) to a landlord. It seems the antis have been scouring the UK to find out what information they can about the financial performance of tennis courts, and they were able to make a convincing case out of what they dug up. 

Whilst this is obviously a tough result for those close to the project who have given countless hours and costs, there is a lesson here for us all, one which will surface whenever new court projects are under consideration. That issue is 'Can tennis afford to grow, does it have the appetite to generate the surplus needed for the future?'.  Ten courts opened for tennis between 1990 and 2000, but of the ten only six were new courts, the other four were refurbishments of existing buildings. It is not obvious where the next UK refurbishment might be, most of the known locations have other plans or uses, so we will need to confront this 'Can we afford it' issue sooner or later. If a court is built, the owners of the building and/or the land, or those putting up the funding, might reasonably expect some financial return. The Hopton review will no doubt consider this issue as part of the bigger picture.