IT is far from game, set and match for a proposed $14 million tennis centre at Centenary Park despite Frankston Tennis Club members agreeing to vacate the club’s Hastings Rd site.
The club’s tennis courts are situated next to Frankston Hospital and it is expected that the next stage of the hospital’s expansion will see Peninsula Health buy the council-owned land, leased by the tennis club, by the end of the decade.
Frankston Council is pushing for a regional tennis centre to be built at Centenary Park. Frankston Tennis Club would merge with Frankston East Tennis Club at the centre.
Council is pushing ahead with plans for a tennis complex featuring 16 floodlit courts, a new sporting pavilion to house the Centenary Park Golf Club, upgraded car parking and two synthetic lawn bowls greens but there is no guarantee federal and state funding will be forthcoming to make the $14 million dream a reality.
Frankston Labor MP Paul Edbrooke said the $14 million project is very much council’s idea at this stage.
“I have not been approached formally in regard to a business case or request for funding,” he said.
“I’d much rather see the council sort out some existing issues like the funding for the Frankston Basketball Stadium, which includes $2.5 million of state government money still waiting to be spent.”
Mr Edbrooke’s federal counterpart, Dunkley Liberal MP Bruce Billson, appears to be on a unity ticket with Labor with regards to government funding for the tennis centre.
Mr Billson said there had been early preliminary talks but no detail had been provided as yet.
“The idea that other levels of government would step up to fund the latest multi-million dollar idea that Frankston Council has is an interesting strategy,” he said.
“I imagine at some point everyone will be asking council to prioritise its major wish list of major spending ideas that it’s hoping someone else will pay for.”
The Labor state government is investing $63 million in a redevelopment of the Frankston train station precinct and Young St alongside a $46.9 million first stage upgrade of the Frankston campus of Chisholm TAFE.
Federal funding for such a major infrastructure project may be involved at some future stage.
Peninsula Health seems in no rush to expand Frankston Hospital further in the wake of the opening of a new $81 million emergency department earlier this year.
Peninsula Health planning, infrastructure & IT executive director Simon Brewin said the public healthcare provider is finalising its Strategic Clinical Service Plan including developments for the next ten years.
The plan is likely to include a further expansion of Frankston Hospital to meet rising service demands by Frankston and Mornington Peninsula patients.
“The acquisition of the land currently leased to the Frankston Tennis Club will be the subject of discussion at some future point between Frankston Council and state government via the Department of Health and Human Services.”
No formal offer to buy the land has been made.
Council is spruiking the $14 million regional tennis centre at Centenary Park as “a community Country Club style project”.
“Our vision is for a modern tennis centre that caters for the membership base of both clubs, attracts new members and participants, can be a regional high performance training base and also host state and national events,” the mayor Cr Sandra Mayer said.
“Given the easy access to Centenary Park from Peninsula Link, this is the ideal location for a regional facility, however the scope of the project will be determined by how much funding state and federal governments can commit alongside council’s contribution.
“We will only get one chance to get this relocation right, and that means creating a centre that will service Frankston and the wider region for many years to come.”
An upgrade of Frankston Basketball Stadium was listed as a top priority in council’s pre-state election Stand Up For Frankston campaign – during which council lobbied both major political parties to invest in Frankston – but there was no mention of a $14 million regional tennis centre.
