MIRAMAR COURTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 3, 4 July 1939, Page 15

MIRAMAR COURTS

RELIEF ASKED FOR

POSITION OF ASSOCIATION

REQUEST TO COUNCIL

A further appeal was made to the City Council last night by a deputa-! tion from the Wellington Lawn Tennis! Association for some relief from thej annual rental for the Miramar courts. The reserves committee had previously j received a deputation from the association and had recommended that no action should be taken. The council adopted this recommendation, and the matter will require a notice of motion . and rescinding motion if ;the matter is to be reopened. The Polo Ground, when taken over by the association, said Mr. J. .L. MacDuff, was no more than a swamp, which, at an expenditure of £8867, had been transformed into a valuable city asset, with 34 grass and 16 hard courts. Every one of the grass courts was of championship standard. Bases had been laid for 16 more grass courts, to complete the full scheme of 40 courts. Over the last seven years the cash takings of the association at Miramar had averaged £675, and the cash expenditure £894, ah average loss of £229 a year, and the association had paid the City Council £ 125 a year for rental and water rates. The annual loss had been met by the tennis players of Wellington out of affiliation fees, but the association was now faced with a probable increase of £300 in the cost of maintenance and upkeep. The tennis players were prepared; to do their part and had recently agreed to an increase, in the affiliation fees from 2s 6d to 4s a member, but that would find only £175 of the £300 of additional outgoings. When the association took over the grounds thirteen years ago it had an overdraft of £2100, and it had not been possible to recover' that by one penny, and besides that had realised on two sections and had put the £400 received into the development of the park. The position had now arisen that the association could not carry on without some relief from the City Council from the expense of providing and maintaining a necessary and valuable city asset. COST OF THE RESERVES. The council conducted sixteen reserves for the express purpose of providing play areas for sports other than tennis, such as Anderson Park and the Basin Reserve.; In respect of these the council had lost, from figures averaged over the years 1937 and 1938, £1205 a year. While the whole" of that was not for sport, as the reserves were partly used by children, the greater part of this payment was for sports. The loss was in effect a direct grant towards the cost of ; organised sport, with the exception; of tennis. The loss on Kilbirnie was £514, on Kelburn £790, arid- on the Prince of Wales Park £421. Councillor Gaudin: Those are public reserves. <Mr. Mac Duff said he was entitled to show the amounts mentioned in the city's accounts. If these "grants" were not maintained by the council the sports bodies would have to maintain the grounds themselves. Not all of them could afford to maintain the grounds as they were maintained for them by the City Council. The Tennis Association was the only organisation which provided and maintained its own grounds, at its own expense, providing sport for 4000 affiliated players. It was also px'oviding an asset which would,revert to the City Council in nine years. If the City Council miaintained these grounds its loss would be much greater than £1000 a year. The only alternative, if more relief could not be obtained from the council/ would be to hand the grounds back to it. In that case the saving to tennis players, and the cost to the citizens of Wellington, would both be enormous. ASSISTANCE TO TENNIS. Councillor L. McKenzie said that though it had been said that the council had given the association littleassistance the fact was that when the ground was set aside for tennis the council had had - v to purchase another area for other sports purposes at a cost of £9000, and more recently had relieved the association of a liability of £1300. Actually, the council had been very lenient to the association, which paid no rates and paid merely a peppercorn rental of £2 a week for a niagnificent ground. Councillor M. F. Luckie: They hav6 spent £8000 to develop it. Councillor McKenzie: That is their concern. To Councillor W. Duncan, chairman pf the reserves committee, Mr, Mac- ' Duff said that the overdraft was in respect of the building. Councillor. Duncan said that it was not correct that the»land was formerly useless; it had actually been leased by the council for £50 a year. It had also been said that the council did nothing for tennis, but the council provided a large number of courts on the Town Belt. Mr. Mac Duff agreed that that was so. but| did not the council make a profit on most of them? . Councillor A. Black pointed out that the Miramar courts could only be used for tennis, while the other reserves could be used for any sport. Mr. Mac Duff said that while the town had to have such reserves, cricket and football could not be played in Wellington without them. Some of-the members of the council, said the Mayor (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop), knew the history of the Miramar venture from the start. The flgures put before them would be considered, and the decisions of the council forwarded to the association. They might rest assured that the council was desirous of assisting the association. ' The Mayor asked for copies of the figures that had been given for distribution to the councillors. He was much interested to hear that the association maintained forty grass courts for £800 a year, and that out of that amount there was a good deal of expenditure outside the grass courts. Councillor P. M. Butler pointed out that the association had the benefit of relief workers. Mr. Mac Duff agreed that if it were not so their expenditure would have been much greater. • ; ; •