Use of Sheffield tennis courts rockets

Lead coaches Ryan Bagshaw and Luis Sylvester, pictured with children who took part in the mini tennis red sessions at Bingham Park.

Since Sheffield City Council struck a deal with the Lawn Tennis Association three years ago, which it said was the biggest deal of its kind in the country, 7,000 people have headed to the parks to play tennis.

It was an increase of nearly 1,500 people since 2015 and during the same time there have been over 34,000 online bookings to use the courts.

The figures, revealed by a Freedom of Information request, showed Hillsborough and Weston were the most popular parks seeing well over 10,000 games each.

Paul Sheard, regional tennis participation manager, said they are delighted tennis court use has risen in the city.

He added: "The courts provide a mix of free and paid use to enable everyone to take part in tennis and the court fees generated go into a sinking fund to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of the courts. This will help safeguard the long term future of parks tennis in Sheffield which had appeared to be in terminal decline.

"There have been some challenges over the last year with the relatively poor summer and the harsh winter but with the refurbished courts and accompanying programmes we are looking forward to even more people playing tennis on Sheffield’s parks this summer.”

He added that since the partnership between the Council and Parks Tennis CIC, who manage the courts, there has been a Â£350,000 investment in refurbishing 24 courts at six different park sites

Read below for the full list of total figures over the past three years:

Court bookings

Park

Concord: 2,038

Graves: 1,327

High Hazels: 4,177

Hillsborough: 13,043

Millhouses: 3,040

Weston: 10,379

Unique bookers/players

Park

Concord: 324

Graves: 331

High Hazels: 567

Hillsborough: 2,031

Millhouses: 1,135

Weston: 2,606