Tennis hub plans get council backing
Highland Council has moved a step closer to creating a £1.5 million regional tennis centre despite some strong opposition.
Last Thursday, the care, learning and housing committee voted overwhelmingly in favour of proceeding with an application to the next funding round on November 1.
The project is backed by Sport Scotland, Tennis Scotland and the Lawn Tennis Association with proposals that would see funding come from a grant of up to £1 million from the Transforming Scottish Indoor Tennis Fund (TSIT).
However, this falls short of the total needed and will leave the council and High Life Highland, the charity which provides leisure services across the region, to source a further half a million pounds.
Councillor Andrew Jarvie tabled an amendment opposing the move saying he was "annoyed" because he felt the priority should have been replacing "past it" mobile libraries that would better serve the whole region.
Mr Jarvie said: "I just struggle to connect the dots at a time when we struggle to protect the services that we do have – how are we then going on and investing in new services? It seems not the right way to do it."
He added the "Inverness-centric project" would be of benefit to the "inner Moray Firth area only."
Councillor Richard Laird said he was "a little bit peeved" at the lack of detail.
He said: "I don’t know whether I support proposals for a tennis centre in Inverness until I have seen the business case, how much it would cost to run and how much it would generate. This proposal is back to front."
Despite the objections there was enough support within the committee to push the bid forward to the application stage with a future review to be undertaken on the business case.
Brigitte Johnson, whose daughter plays tennis, attended the council in support of the move along with five others.
She said: "Currently the issue in Highland is that we don’t have any indoor facilities, so kids, adults, anyone who wants to get involved have to travel down the A9 to Stirling or Gleneagles – a long way to go for a game of tennis."
Ross Lyon (16), an S5 pupil at Fortrose Academy and an avid tennis player believes an indoor facility would greatly benefit young people in the north.
He said: "Most tournaments in the winter are indoors down south so having indoor courts up here will allow me to improve and also give me a chance to play all year round which means that I wouldn’t fall behind others from the central belt.
"It would help young kids get into the sport who don’t want to play in negative one degrees on a sodden Tuesday night."
