A TENNIS club in Leamington is among 149 facilities across the country to secure a share of £16.5 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England that will help improve facilities and playing fields across the country.
Leamington Lawn Tennis and Squash Club in Milverton has been awarded £75,000 to help fund a second competition squash and racketball court.
On completion it will bring the total courts at the club to six alongside its 12 tennis courts, and strengthening its claim to be one of the best racket sport facilities in the West Midlands.
The project is expected to be completed next year and club chairman, John Evison, said he was delighted to have secured the investment.
He said: “The new court will enable us to meet demand from our fast-growing membership in squash and racketball and further develop our excellent coaching and community outreach programmes, mainly for young people.
“It will also give us a much better integrated facility for our ‘social sport’ activities, especially popular with new members, for our successful teams and for the regular competition events which we hold.”
The announcement comes as Sport England revealed that it has invested £5 billion in grassroots sport in the last 20 years.
The latest round of facility funding will help create new changing rooms, pavilions and artificial grass pitches as well as protecting and improving grass pitches to make people’s sporting experiences better.
Charles Johnston, of Sports England, added: “We’re delighted to have invested so much into community sport, and see on a daily basis the impact that it makes for local people.
“By giving people top-class, sustainable facilities in which to play sport, and by improving and protecting our playing surfaces, we’re ensuring that more people can pay sport, more often.”
