Facilities
Tennis Facilities
The Club’s playing facilities comprise
4 x floodlit all-weather tarmac hard court (payment for lighting by meter-cards)
2 x all-weather tarmac hard courts
The court surfaces are maintained in good condition through a regular cleaning, painting and refurbishment program; tennis nets and bands are renewed as required and tennis balls are provided free of charge by the Club for social tennis over the summer months. All 6 courts were most recently refurbished and/or repainted during 2021 and are currently as may be seen from the aerial perspective displaying on the Home page.
For 30 years or so the Club operated from this timber Clubhouse.
While the wooden Clubhouse was adequate for our purposes for many years, it didn’t have any heating, was in continuing need of ‘patching up’ and proved to be limited in capacity and flexibility as our needs and expectations altered. Accordingly, Members made the decision in 2006 to explore the possibility of constructing a replacement clubhouse on a bigger scale in brick with tiled roof; after much deliberation and delay this proposal came to fruition in the form of the building shown below
The construction of the new Clubhouse was phased over a couple of years and approved by the Local Authority in November 2013 as ‘fit for purpose’ and ready for occupancy. It is a very attractive facility, built to a high standard, with ladies’ and gents’ changing rooms, toilets (including disabled facilities), storage areas, bar, television and comfortable seating and furniture options in the Members’ lounge, contemporary kitchen with cooker, fridge, freezer, etc.; alongside this main building we have also built a separate Coach’s Office, washroom and store; between the two buildings there is an area of decking for watching the tennis and for holding barbecues.
These new amenities have enabled the Club to make even more use of its playing facilities, provide a more conducive year-round focus and meeting point for Members while attracting new Members to the Club; the clubhouse has allowed us to extend our own social activities on the premises – our ‘Social Events’ page is the place to look for details of what’s coming up. The audio facilities and acoustic standards in the clubhouse are extremely good and wifi is freely available throughout. The clubhouse also has pool, darts and table tennis facilities for members to use when not on the courts.
We are now in the position of being able to accommodate court access for wheelchairs in conjunction with approved coaching programmes run by our partner, Inclusive Tennis CIC.
During 2022 an imaginative crowdfunding scheme led by one of our members has enabled the installation of floodlighting on a further 3 courts as well as the upgrading of those on another, allowing for a great increase in playing opportunities over the autumn and winter months. Pictures of the Official’ Switch-On’ are available on our Gallery page.
As part of the club’s commitment to ongoing facility development, 2024 has seen the renewal of the fencing around all the courts, aided by the generous support through the Whitemoss Community Fund of the Veolia Environmental Trust. The club has since added windbreaks to several sides of the courts.
We are grateful, too, to the Lawn Tennis Association, Tennis Lancashire, Sport England and Wigan Council for the encouragement, advice and financial support they have given us in connection with these various projects.
Future plans include re-landscaping the site; we are in a quiet Green Belt location adjacent to fields and woodland, and hope to maximise the benefits of this situation with additional planting, picnic and sitting areas. The site has parking capacity for about 40 vehicles.