Club wins £75k Garant for a Padel Court (Pt 1)

The Club has just won a CIL funding grant of £75k from EHDC to build a Padel Court. This is a good opportunity for the club and I hope you are interested to know what happens now! Apologies for a long message but I want to spread as many facts as possible about the potential Padel Tennis court at Alton Tennis Club.

Does this mean we are building a Padel Court?

I hope so and doing so will be a central plank of my manifesto for a 2nd term as chair of the club. But we have agreed in committee not to take the final decision until after the Club AGM to be held at the end of October, where we will hold a vote on whether to do it or not.

What is a CIL Grant?

The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is paid by developers to the local council in order to provide additional infrastructure to support the new residents. The council is obliged to collect the levy AND spend it in the locale where the development occurred.

With ~ 2000 homes in development or completed on the last year within Alton, ATC is an ideal recipient of grant funding from a plentiful pot. This has proven to be the case and today I had confirmation we have the full £75k grant we applied for.

This funding is a grant not a loan. It does not need to be repaid. But it does come with conditions. Obviously it can only be used to build a padel court.

What other funding do we need?

The eventual cost of the project will be funded from three sources; this CIL fund, existing club funds and an interest free loan from the LTA.

The Club is financially robust and has the ability to fund all the extra cost over and above the CIL GRANT. But the committee has taken the financially prudent decision to retain the majority of the funds to cover "sinking costs". These include repainting of courts 3 & 4 in the next couple of years and the resurfacing of courts 1 & 2 in 2027.

This means that a loan is probably required and partly the reason to have a vote at the AGM: the constitution requires such a vote before taking on a loan.

Newer members may not be aware that this mixed funding model is how the club started in 1994 and was extended in 2011. It is the recent completion of repayment for the 2011 expansion that has put clubs finances in such good health.

I don't want to play Padel, why should I be paying for it?