PLANS to turn Petersfield into a community tennis centre have been unveiled to town councillors. They form part of East Hampshire District Council's vision of building a Sports Hub at Penns Place providing state-of-the-art facilities for rugby, football and cricket as well as tennis. On Thursday EHDC community manager Mike O'Mahony told members of the town council's grounds committee he had been asked to look into tennis provision and include it in the planned Sports Hub vision. He outlined £250,000 plans for four courts, two outdoor with floodlights and two indoor courts behind the Taro Centre. But the plan relies on co- operation from town councillors who own the land, and who already have plans to refurbish their own courts at the Avenue Pavilion. Mr O'Mahony told councillors: "EHDC has always been keen on encouraging partnership working between key stakeholders to identify and obtain where possible external funding for further multi- sport developments which could include football, tennis and other sports. "The creation, development and sustainability of specific sports on one site, utilises volunteers, facilities, coaches and other forms of assistance in the most effective way." He said the Lawn Tennis Association had identified the town as an area which could benefit from improved tennis facilities and had set aside funding to help finance a scheme. The LTA have made it clear however, that community clubs required a balance of indoor and outdoor courts to satisfy the tennis programmes that were expected to be in place throughout the whole year. Mr O'Mahony said there were a number of issues to be resoloved before the plan could proceed.
