A small increase in the cost of a popular borough-wide tennis membership scheme has been announced.

Play Tennis Richmond runs 44 courts across 11 venues in the area on behalf of the council.

It costs £50 for a yearly membership which lets you book a court for 90 minutes every day - but this is being cut to an hour.

The following message was sent to members today:

[i]In advance of the courts reopening (the date of which is not currently confirmed) we are making some changes to the terms and conditions of membership.

These changes are as follows:

• the number of courts per week that can be booked will reduce from 7 per week to 5 per week
• the duration of courts that can be booked will be reduced from 1.5 hours to 1 hour per booking
• there will be a limit of one family and two junior memberships for any household
• the cost of an annual membership will increase from £50 to £55 and the Pay as you Play cost will increase from £8.00 to £9.00 per court per hour - this is the first price increase since 2017

These changes will not apply to you as an existing member however once your membership does expire, at that point, if you wish to renew then you will apply for a membership under the new terms and conditions.

These changes are being brought into place to manage court usage in such a way that as many people who would like to play tennis have the opportunity to do so. Last year our public tennis courts were as busy as they have ever been and at times they were fully booked all day every day. It was an unprecedented year but we feel that it is likely that the courts will be equally as busy this year when they do reopen.

During 2020 we had some significant issues with people not turning up for their court booking and we will be undertaking some detailed observations of sites where this was a particular issue such as Cambridge Gardens and York House Gardens. Where we find any member who regularly does not show up for a booking they have made we will take action that will include the suspension of membership. Suspension is a last resort and I would ask that if you are unable to make your booking that you cancel it as soon as you can to release it to other members of the public.

In addition I would like to remind members that the only coaching allowed on the courts is that delivered by the council authorised providers and any member identified receiving unauthorised coaching runs the risk of having their membership suspended.

We look forward to seeing you back on the courts soon.