Greater Manchester weather delays opening of refurbished tennis courts in Salford

Rain has stopped, or at least paused, play at tennis courts in Salford. The soggy summer and a backlog of construction work has put the covers on plans to re-open 21 of the city’s tennis courts. 

Refurbishment work has taken place at tennis courts across Albert Park, Boothsbank Park, Buile Hill Park, Eccles Recreation Ground, Lightoaks Park, Park Parr Fold Park and Victoria Park. Salford Community Leisure (SCL) and We Do Tennis will offer free public coaching and work with children, young people and schools to encourage youngsters to try tennis.

Councillor Barbara Bentham, lead member for environment, neighbourhoods, sports and leisure, said it was extremely frustrating that the Great British Summer had gone from hot to horrible just as the courts were nearly ready to re-open.

She said: “In some parks there is still quite a bit of construction work to finish and court resurfacing to complete which the weather isn’t stopping but it isn’t helping,” she said.

“In others, before we can open the courts to players, contractors have to finish the hard court painting. That’s no small job and they need a consistent spell of dry weather for that because the paint has to be applied to a dry surface. The courts are due to be inspected in the next few weeks to get their safety certificates and, if all goes well, should be open very soon after that.

“The tennis open day showed how much people are looking forward to these new courts and we had hoped to finish the work soon after that. We’re very close and our aim is to get as many as possible open in the next few weeks but with the weather behaving so unpredictably, we can’t put a precise date on that. We will keep people updated so please bear with us.”