Tennis court clash continues

Public anger has again flared over Council’s plans for the Rushcutters Bay tennis courts, with residents last Friday picketing the caretaker’s cottage at 5 Waratah St to prevent its demolition, while manager Rory Miles held last-minute talks with CEO Monica Barone before reluctantly agreeing to sign the contract Council was offering.

“The immediate aim of the Community Picket is to save the Caretaker’s Cottage which Council intends to bulldoze next week and to ensure justice for Rory Miles as promised by Clover Moore,” said Dixie Coulton, former City Councillor and spokesperson for the picketers.

Rory Miles lives in the cottage and has operated the tennis centre for 27 years, with popular local support, but has faced a formidable campaign from Council bureaucrats to remove him. First they awarded the tender to another operator and then, after three council meetings were packed out with protesters and the tender withdrawn, wrote a new, draconian contract that gave them micro-control over the running of the centre and, says Mr Miles, was commercially unviable.

By last Friday, five deadlines to sign the contract had expired as Mr Miles negotiated with Council over the punishing terms, gaining some ground. But Ms Barone refused to concede more, saying the contract had to conform to the tender, and that Mr Miles could submit DAs requesting an increase in outdoor seating and an alcohol permit.  The standoff had created a dilemma for Council staff: what would they do if no-one signed these contracts?.

It is understood that a similar standoff has left the Prince Alfred Courts in Surry Hills without a manager.

While the Council report recommending demolition says the cottage “is not in keeping with the park character”, residents say it is part of an overall heritage-listing of the park and    should be retained.

They also say having a live-in caretaker is useful – twice Mr Miles has foiled attempts by vandals to set fire to the nearby wooden grandstand. Heritage campaigner Andrew Woodhouse says the Council report is misleading because it contradicted Council’s Plan of Management for the Park which said that having a Council employee living in the cottage “would create a de facto ranger… especially in out-of-hour work situations”.

Feedback from a Council community meeting showed “a slightly greater percentage of participants opposing the removal of No. 5 Waratah Street (44 percent) than supporting it (41 percent)”.

The cottage is not in the way of planned new courts, and demolishing housing is bad policy given Sydney’s housing shortage, say residents who will continue to picket the site.

“We want a council that works for us and with us; not just to implement a mayor’s concrete Xanadu,” said Ms Coulton.

by Michael Gormly

[BREAKOUT:]

We want Rory

Local residents Betty Cassidy and Stefan Backman joined the picketers last Friday.

“I moved here in 2002 because I liked the tennis centre,” said Mr Backman.

Ms Cassidy has been around the area since she started at Kincoppal School 80 years ago. Her daughter, son-in-law and their children still play at the tennis centre.

“There’s not another place like it in Australia,” she said. “I don’t agree with what she’s trying to do here.”