Meander Valley Council unveils $3.7 million squash facility in Deloraine (6/12/24)

The Meander Valley Council has unveiled a $3.7 million squash facility in Deloraine to replace the town's old courts. Video by Aaron Smith (6/12/24)

Transcript

00:00We're standing at the new Delorane squash court facility built by the Mander Valley Council.

00:07It's a floor waste facility with glass rear walls so the viewing capability and capacity

00:13is way superior to even our existing courts and the courts at Westbury that had a single

00:19narrow above ground viewing area. The court specifications are built 100%

00:26to international standards so yeah it's quite a big improvement. Demand wise our club is made

00:32up of around about 50 members but I envisage quite a lot more growth. Part of the reason we

00:40have lower numbers is just through the restrictions that we face from only having two courts that

00:45makes nights long and things like that so there will be a lot of growth. Squash is quite a popular

00:50sport in Tasmania that's held right across the state. There's clubs with quite a lot of active

00:56participation. Delorane being sort of the region or sorry the centre of the north of Tassie

01:02it's an ideal training place for people from the northwest and also from the north to come here to

01:07Delorane and train rather than go to one end of the top of the state or the other. We knew that

01:13the courts that we had were not up to standard basically they got flooded every time the river

01:17rose 2016, 2022, 2011 they were flooded. The floors had to be upgraded and redone so

01:25we made the decision to lobby for funds which we were successful in getting. So it's a 3.7 million

01:30dollar project overall, 2.9 million dollars was through the federal government, 500,000 dollars

01:35through the state government and 300,000 dollars through the local council. Congratulations to the

01:40local squash community here in Delorane, the club who fought long and hard to make sure this project

01:46got up and running and this will be a great benefit for the local community.