The President of the Chatham-Kent Pickleball Club is very excited about new funding to build new pickleball courts in the municipality.
Chatham-Kent has received $430,000 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and councillors will now discuss whether to build up to 10 courts throughout the community during the upcoming budget deliberations.
The location and the exact number of courts are still up in the air, but the President of the Chatham-Kent Pickleball Club, Keith Baxter, said they should be centralized, perhaps next to the St. Clair College Health Plex in Chatham to get the maximum benefit and more bang for the buck. Baxter said a central location would also allow them to host tournaments.
"The biggest problem is if they decide to go with one or two courts and spread them out over Chatham-Kent, that is not very cost-effective. They won't be able to put up 10 courts with that money, there's just no way," said Baxter. "We can bring in people and what happens is you get a residual effect. Restaurants, gas stations, corner stores all benefit from these tournaments coming into the area."
Baxter said pickleball clubs could help offset operations and maintenance costs if the courts are built in one central area.
"If you spread them out, the legacy costs for each court are going to be enormous. If you put them all together, all the pickleball clubs could get together and say look we pay dues anyway and our dues could go towards maintenance of these courts," Baxter said.
Baxter said there are about 100 pickleball club members in the municipality and he believes the new courts will boost their numbers tremendously.
The municipality said the provincial funding will cover approximately 80 per cent of the court construction. Chatham-Kent’s General Manager of Finance and Budget Gord Quinton said the project isn’t included in the current budget and added the grant requires some taxpayers' money to build the courts and maintain them.
The pickleball cash is part of $5.6 million in funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation Community Building Fund for sports and recreation facilities and community organizations in Southwestern Ontario.
Pickleball is a paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong. Baxter said local pickleball games are currently played on larger tennis courts and it takes time away from tennis players.