After 93 years of helping build local tennis talent, the Mitcham Tennis Club has been met with a shocking blow, with Whitehorse Council recommending it either call it quits or merge with another club to make way for a multi-million dollar redevelopment of Nunawading’s Walker Park.
✍️How we got here: Whitehorse Council’s draft master plan for a multi-million dollar redevelopment of Nunawading’s Walker Park was met with a tepid response from local sporting clubs at a recent council meeting.
The first round of community and stakeholder consultation ran from November 2023 to March 2024 and helped shape the final draft plan.
🗺️The plan: Endorsed at last week’s council meeting, the draft plan outlines 25 projects, including replacing the existing Indoor Sports Complex with a brand-new, two-storey gymnastics and sports centre, as well as re-purposing the existing tennis court space for other community benefits.
💰The cost: Council officers projected the total cost of the project would be $17.4 million, excluding GST.
The cost to remove the existing tennis courts and public toilets and construct the new gymnastics and sports centre was estimated to be $13 million, but works would not begin until July 2031 at the earliest.
Funding would have to come from council’s budget and reserves, grants from the State and Federal Government and potential partnerships with tenant clubs and sporting groups.
🎾Net losses proposed: Council officers recommended the Mitcham Tennis Club either amalgamate with another club or disband, citing “a trend of low and declining membership”.
However, club president Douglas Evans said despite seeing low membership numbers during Covid, the 93-year-old club’s membership had doubled from 42 to 84 players since welcoming a “new and energetic” committee in 2024.
Evans said the committee was surprised to learn the club was “deleted” from the draft plan only four days before it went before council.
🗓️Too long to wait: A major concern raised by other club representatives was that the completion of the proposed works would be too far away to respond to growing participation numbers, especially in women’s sport.
🤸Leaps and bounds: Nunawading Gymnastics and Sports Club pathways and development manager, Rachel McNally, said the club has outgrown its current site.
Nunawading Gymnastics and Sports Club currently has 558 members with 33 on the waitlist.
🗣️“We continue to grow and meet the needs of the community and we need a facility that will support us in that growth,” said McNally. “Without this ongoing support, I fear that the club will need to restrict member numbers and cancel classes.”
To have your say on the draft plan, visit www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/about-council/have-your-say
