Around 100 people attended a public meeting to discuss the future of an under-threat Cardiff tennis club. Members of Whitchurch Tennis Club are concerned about plans for the future of the land where the club, that has been on its current site since 1946, is based.
The club, which has eight all-weather hard courts, a practice wall and club house, has around 300 members and is based just off St Francis Road in the north Cardiff suburb. It is one of a few privately-owned tennis clubs in the city and a new 15-year lease that was agreed in March 2021 has three break clauses.
The landlords say they are considering the interests of their children and have been working with a housing developer on plans for the site. This has raised concerns among the local community and club chairman Mike Lubienski said the public meeting was called to show the "strength of feeling in the community about keeping the club".
He added: "We wanted to show the level of support there is for the club in the community and the value of the club to the community. By the same token it's important that the landlords and the developers understand what a strength of feeling there is against this plan to remove a community asset which has a big contribution of helping the wellbeing of lots of people around Whitchurch."
Mr Lubienski said many of the club's members lived locally. "About 70% of our members are local people who can either walk or cycle to the club. As well as the 300 members of the club the club is used by all the local schools for free – Whitchurch High School, Melin Gruffydd Primary School, Whitchurch Primary School, and even Glantaf school use it.
"That is part of our community commitment and they make great use of it over the summer. Because of the location of our site it's within walking distance for the schools.
"In addition to that the clubhouse is available and we have a variety of activities there: yoga, a Scrabble club, a mother and baby group. In addition to the paying members there are people who can pay to play on a one-off basis. There are also fitness groups that use the club. So it has a real value to a whole raft of people in the village. It would be very sad for Whitchurch to lose a local amenity like that. It would be a great loss."
But landlords Christine Synan and Martin Jones, who inherited the site from great-grandfather and grandfather Walter Hughes who built the houses in St Francis Road, say they want to sell the land so they are not passing on the high costs involved to their four children. There had originally been plans for six homes on the site in the 1940s but they were put on hold during World War Two. When the tennis club was made homeless after being moved out of a site in nearby Park Road a member of the local Methodist Church approached the family to see if they could use it for the tennis club. The family say the tennis club was on short leases in the beginning as it was not originally intended as the long-term solution for the club and have added that the rent has been fixed at 2015 levels for 10 years.
The aunt and nephew said: "We are not bad people wanting to see the end of tennis in Whitchurch. Our family has supported tennis in the community for a long time but the peppercorn rent and large legal bills mean it represents a poor financial return and that is something we do not want to pass on to the next generation of our family.
"We inherited the land. It is not something that we actively sought out. We have initiated meetings with Cardiff Council over the last five months and have been actively seeking an alternative site.
"We have been working with a high-quality developer with a history of building in Whitchurch and the plans would be for a relatively small number of houses. We would just like to urge the members to consider alternatives."
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