Maidenhead Lawn Tennis Club hoping to boost membership with proposed new floodlights

An application is in from Maidenhead Lawn Tennis Club (MLTC) on All Saints Avenue to install new floodlights – with the hopes of expanding its playing capacity to meet a current shortfall.

The proposed 18 new floodlights on 13 additional columns will be for three of its courts and 'mini tennis zone.'

There are 10 outdoor courts at the main site; currently, six of them are floodlit on 8m high columns and four further clay courts are not floodlit.

There is ‘strong support’ from the borough to increase access to tennis courts in its current draft Plating Pitch Strategy, which indicates ‘a significant capacity shortfall’ at MLTC of circa 180 members.

Providing lighting on the remaining four courts would relieve this by approximately 80 members, says MLTC, ‘enabling greater use for junior coaching, competition and general use during the winter and darker months’.

The club is ‘dedicated to the furtherance’ of tennis and is ‘constantly trying to find new ways of allowing more players a chance to play’.

MLTC has an adult membership of around 520 adult playing members and 140 junior playing members. There is a waiting list for new members.

MLTC is restricted to a six-court venue in autumn and winter months due to weather issues such as frost and rain, which ‘often preclude use of hard courts.’

This has ‘a significant impact’ on its junior players, especially after school hours, MLTC wrote in its application.

To reduce light pollution from the proposals, the planned lighting scheme is ‘a more expensive approach’ designed to ‘significantly reduce light spillage and glare outside of the playing area’.

This, together with the hedgerow and fencing, is intended to mitigate concerns of neighbours in All Saints Avenue, Stonefield Park and the residential care and day centre at Stonefield Park West.

It is proposed that the floodlighting system will only be used between the hours of 8am-10pm on any day.

The new lighting columns will also be at a lower height of 7m instead of the current 8m.

To combat noise, MLTC ‘will further commit’ to not have coaching events in the mini-zone area after 7pm on any evening.

MLTC says it will ‘reach out to all neighbours directly’ and, where necessary, plan a small number of open discussion events.

The application is supported by an assessment prepared by Signify Lighting UK Ltd, a Guildford-based lighting manufacturer, which analysed the light spillage from the proposed development and ‘demonstrate[d] there to be no material harm to any adjoining property by reason of light spillage’.

Speaking to the Advertiser, club chairman Richard Hedley said: “As chairman, I am sometimes frustrated when I see up to 12 members waiting for courts in late summer evenings because our clay courts do not have LED lights like our other six courts.

“We have made several planning applications in the past, the last being over 10 years ago. We believe that new technology options we that now have, make this new proposal a workable solution and one that is fully aligned with LTA [Lawn Tennis Association] standards.”

To see all documents enter reference 23/02583/FULL into the borough planning portal.