SIR – I write, as a member of Ilkley Tennis Club, to express my deep concerns about the club’s latest multi-million-pound expansion scheme currently being put before council planners.
My concerns are the financial and environmental impacts, which I think will be severe.
The former threatens to put the club in an even more precarious position. Latest accounts show it has already traded at a small loss for the previous two years. It has an outstanding £400,000 debt from the 1998 expansion and has just £300,000 in reserves. And yet it is proposed to borrow another £2 million to build yet more facilities in the hope of attracting new members.
And a few months ago the club changed its constitution so that it would limit the liabilities anyone might face if the club went bust. Members like me want a thriving tennis club with the best possible facilities, but not if it prejudices its future.
I urge the tennis club committee to rethink their strategy and I urge council planners to reject these proposals.
Tim Blott, Skipton Road, Ilkley
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