As the national governing body for tennis, we would normally be reflecting on another brilliant grass court season, though sadly this year that’s not the case.
However, there are grounds for positivity, with huge numbers of people playing recreationally since lockdown restrictions eased in May.
Our vision is to open up tennis so more people can enjoy its unique physical and mental health benefits.
One vital element of this work is focused on park tennis facilities, where nearly 1.5 million people have played tennis in the last 12 months and almost half are from lower socio-economic groups.
We recognise the significant challenges that local authorities are facing, particularly around provision of sporting and leisure facilities. That is why we have announced a comprehensive, cost-free offer to local authorities to help support provision of flexible, free and low-cost opportunities for people to get active through tennis.
At the centre of this offer is LTA Rally, our new digital platform designed to make it much easier for participants to find and book a court, group coaching and people to play with. It is completely free to sign-up to for local authorities, and we want as many as possible to list their park venues on the platform, to make the participant journey to court much easier.
In nearly 1,000 priority target parks across England, which we have identified as particularly important sites to open up the sport to more people, we will also fully fund installation of gate access technology, to help local authorities track usage and generate a sinking fund where court hire costs are in place.
A number of local authorities who have adopted these initiatives have seen significant success. Leeds City Council have seen a 10-fold increase in court bookings since adopting the LTA Rally booking system across nine of their park sites, and Wokingham Borough Council’s nine-court Cantley Park site has generated 7,500 hours of court bookings in the first year since adopting our gate access model.