TENNIS CLUBS ON PUBLIC RESERVES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18730, 9 April 1929, Page 9

TENNIS CLUBS ON PUBLIC RESERVES.

L To th© Editor. Dear Sir, —What a “ dog in the manger ” attitude .some people take up in regard to public reserves. We have a good example of this in the protests made by a number of people to a request from the Beckenham Tennis j Club for an additional fifteen feet of ground at either end of its courts, so that these courts can be extended and improved. The ground requirect by the club is not being used at present, nor can it possibly be used in the future by anyone other than the members of the club, for it is shut off at one end by a fence and at the other by the club’s pavilion. It is “no man’s land,” and serves at present only as a place in which to lose tennis-balls. The club’s courts are at present very cramped for space and possess practically no run-back. The object of the club in asking for this land is not to lay down additional courts but merely to improve the present ones. Can you imagine any reasonable person objecting to this particularly as the improvement to the club will also be an improvement to the park as it will bring under order a part of it at present covered by wild, uncut gfass, and an uncovered drain. Surely these poor, suburban clubs have a hard enough time of it already, hedged in as they are by by-laws, such as that forbidding the playing of tennis or other games on public reserves on Sunday. The council would have the support, T am sure, of the majority- of the citizens if it took a little less notice of these long-nosed people, who talk so loudly about “ public rights.” and are themselves the first to object when other people ask for a little more of those “ rights.”—l am, etc., MORE LIBERTY.