Call for progress on new courts

THE ball is in the State Government’s court as the City of Greater Bendigo has applied for a grant to upgrade Axedale Tennis Club’s outdated surfaces.

The project would see the demolition of the existing three non-compliant asphalt courts and construction of two new acrylic regulation playing surfaces.

Chris Hobson is secretary of Axedale Tennis Club and said the new courts would also include netball junior Hotshots tennis line marking.

“The town has got limited sporting facilities,” he said. “We’ve got the golf course, but other than that there’s not a great deal else happening so it’s important to have these multi-purpose facilities.”

Mr Hobson said the old asphalt courts had been redone a few times, but never completely resurfaced.

“We’ve taken the nets off one, we don’t allow people to play there. The net posts are original 1920s posts,” he said.

The new courts will be left open to encourage casual players to use them, and Mr Hobson said the club is hopeful the development will see an increase in the number of players, currently between 20 and 30, as well as the return of school sessions.

“We hope to have a lot more players,” he said. “We’re putting another team together for Saturday comps, we’ll be able to have additional activities and we’ve got one set of lights so we can have a night comp as well.”

Mr Hobson said the project has been in the works for over two years and will cost more than $500,000, with the State Government hopefully covering most of that amount.