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A padel and pickleball club has been revealed as the new tenants of a north shore tennis site, replacing one of Sydney’s longest-running community tennis centres when an Aboriginal land council evicts them next month.
The Northern Suburbs Tennis Association (NSTA) was alarmed after receiving formal notice in early August to vacate the eight-court Talus Street Tennis Centre at Naremburn by September 30. They have battled the eviction notice from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC) since, sparking a high-stakes dispute that drew involvement from sporting champions, politicians, and prominent media figures.
Thousands of players who visit Talus Reserve more than 62,000 times a year feared the move would end almost 50 years of tennis at the site, where generations of players have played, alongside Australian champions Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Pat Cash, and John Newcombe.
“There’s a huge community fight against what they’re doing, and it just seems completely unfair and out of context that someone who’s been there running the centre for 40 years and has got one of the most successful tennis businesses has been given weeks of notice,” Newcombe, who played at the Talus Street courts from as early as eight years old, told this masthead.
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The new tenants, Racquet Club, have confirmed tennis will continue, but with a catch. Six of the eight tennis courts will be retained, but two will be converted into four courts for padel – a game described as a blend of tennis, squash and badminton.
“We wanted the path of least resistance, in terms of build and construction, and we didn’t want to disrupt or take away too many tennis courts at that site,” Racquet Club co-founder Lee Ritson said. “It doesn’t matter what type of racquet, right? It’s kind of just getting racquet sports happening there.”
NSTA president Wayne Pascoe said he did not know the land council was talking to other prospective tenants and felt blindsided after receiving the eviction notice.
“I think [padel is] a great sport, it’s such a shame to lose tennis courts to padel … Everyone wants to have both, but no one can have everything they want,” he said.
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The Aboriginal land council took ownership of the Crown land reserve as part of a successful land claim in 2022 after years of legal wrangling. Ritson and his co-founder Darren McMullen thought the new lease was a good opportunity to establish padel on the north shore, but said they had no clue they had walked straight into a decade-long legal stoush over the pocket of prime land.
MLALC chief executive officer Nathan Moran said the tennis club’s annual rent of $46,000 was 80 per cent lower than the market valuation for the site, and he was weighing up two options: either increasing the existing tenant’s rent or seeking an alternative operator willing to pay more.
“They have been paying 20 per cent of the market rent, and now we have a reputable provider that’s going to take over and is willing to pay market value which allows us to receive an appropriate income,” Moran said.
“Existing users will still be able to use it – it’s a win-win for the community and the land council.”
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A spokesperson for the MLALC and the NSW Aboriginal Land Council said existing financial arrangements were “neither fair nor sustainable” and the land council had a responsibility to manage its assets to “carefully consider how the land can best serve the Aboriginal community, both now and for future generations.”
Cammeray resident Jo Chapple, a regular at the centre, suspected the land council would not completely rule out a second redevelopment bid after their proposal to build an 18-storey, 303-apartment tower on the reserve was knocked back in March.
“There’s nothing that’s certain, we don’t know who these people are and if they will maintain the level of services that the public have been used to and rely on. There’s no long-term security that they will be able to continue doing that, so anything’s possible in the future,” Chapple said.
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Cindy Yin is an urban affairs reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.David Barwell is an urban affairs reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.AdvertisementAdvertisement