History of the tennis court saga

The tender process came unstuck when Council awarded the contract for all the city’s courts to one operator, effectively evicting Rory Miles who has run the Rushcutters Bay courts for 26 years.

The move enraged the Rushcutters Bay community, who packed the gallery at three Council meetings with protesters while the Clover Moore councillors dug their heels in, insisting that the process and decision was the best way to serve the community.

But Clover’s team eventually backtracked after a legal opinion tabled by Crs Chris Harris (Greens) and Meredith Burgmann (Labor) said the tender process had been irregular because of communications from three of the tenderers to Councillors.

The heart of the problem appears to be Council’s preference for one operator to manage all 18 courts, which are spread out from Beaconsfield and across the inner-city suburbs. Only two of the court complexes are understood to be commercially viable; Rushcutters Bay and Prince Alfred Park. The remainder are two-court sites with little infrastructure or income potential.

If Council follows community opinion and awards management of the two larger sites to their existing operators, it could be left with the smaller, ‘nuisance’ sites.

But these smaller courts would be best run by Council as a public service, says former Deputy Lord Mayor Dixie Coulton, whose children learned the game at Rushcutters Bay.

“These courts are essential to people’s health and fitness,” she said. “If the smaller courts are not financially viable, Council should continue to run them as a public service instead of acting like a private corporation, rationalising everything in sight.”

By Michael Gormly