Beechworth Lawn Tennis Club has sufficient funding to begin building new courts within the Baarmutha Park sporting complex, but has not given up on winning a court case which could see a further $500,000 delivered from the federal government to construct a clubhouse.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The $1 million project's status was raised at an Indigo Shire meeting last week with the club successful in obtaining $250,000 last year from the state government to add to the $809,000 reaped from the sale of its former courts.
Club president Andy Carr confirmed a Federal Court case was still proceeding and its lawyers, Maurice Blackburn, arguing that Sport Australia inappropriately took direction from the federal government about which projects to award grants to.
Lawyers have been probing Senator Bridget McKenzie's role in approving community sport infrastructure grants in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election.
They want all documents relating to Ms McKenzie's role in funding approvals including communications, notes or recordings of meetings or phone calls between Sport Australia, Senator McKenzie and her office from the time she was federal sports minister.
IN OTHER NEWS
"The case is ongoing and we are pursuing that very actively," Mr Carr said.
"We are still confident of a positive outcome."
Mr Carr said the club still hoped to build the clubrooms with a successful court challenge.
"We are effectively $250,000 short on the project presently," he said.
"We are able to build the courts, fencing, lights, but we can't build a clubhouse.
"Ironically that puts us back in a situation where we're going to have tennis facilities with kids getting changed in cars and no toilets.
"It was the thing we were trying to fix with grant funding in first place.
"But hopefully we'll have some courts to play on by the end of the year.
"There is still room for the club and part of this project is to do a little bit of prep for that."
Indigo Shire is undertaking project management for the new courts Baarmutha Park, which is managed by council on behalf of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark https://www.bordermail.com.au/
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @bordermail
- Follow us on Instagram @bordermail
- Follow us on Google News
