BLANE Dodds, chief executive officer of Tennis Scotland, in his interview with Stewart Fisher in Saturday’s Herald (‘Tennis chief knows the vagaries of Wimbledon qualifying’, June 22), refers to the First Minister being very supportive of his plans, which include Judy Murray’s proposed centre at Park of Keir.
He seems very confident that they will receive public funding and will learn whether this is the case on July 1.
But should they receive public funding for a sport that is very rich at an international level at a time when funding for school’s music and sports programmes are being drastically cut?
Should public money be used for a project that is the result of a serendipitous meeting between Judy Murray and a developer looking for, in my opinion, a way to realise the profit on his land by building luxury houses?
Judy Murray has talked a lot about the gap in funding to build the tennis centre but how are ongoing running costs and maintenance to be met? Is public money to be used for this too?
At the Public Inquiry in September 2016, Mrs Murray and the Park of Keir Partnership were unable to present a viable business plan or any evidence that Park of Keir was the best site for the proposed centre.
Unless they have been able to conjure up a better plan since then, how can this proposal possibly meet the criteria for public funding? The Lawn Tennis Association has already stated it will consider sustainable tennis projects. Where is the evidence that this is sustainable?
Blane Dodds now refers to the tennis centre as Judy Murray’s workforce development centre. Why would this need to be part of a multimillion-pound development on greenbelt that includes luxury houses, a hotel, golf, football and all the other ideas that the partnership have put forward? Surely a smaller site could be used for this.
We all understand the need to encourage the population to be more active. Blane Dodds states that tennis club membership in Scotland has risen, during the Murray era, from 30.000 to 57,000, and that is very positive, but the numbers are very small.
However much money the government were to pour in to tennis, it is unlikely to ever become a mainstream, mass-participation sport.
The schemes that Tennis Scotland and Judy Murray already have in place, such as The Tennis Foundation’s School of Tennis programme, Miss Hits and the new Tennis for Free seem to be a good and cost-effective way of encouraging more people into the sport.
Judy Murray herself said after the failure of the Roehampton tennis centre that 40 £1million centres would have been a better idea.
If there is to be a Murray Legacy surely it should be something that the Murrays, the local community and Scotland should be proud of and not a white elephant that results in the destruction of the greenbelt in the Murray’s hometown and a huge profit for the developer.
Kathy Pidgeon, Residents Against Greenbelt Erosion,
Bridge of Allan
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