Tower Hamlets is the second most deprived borough in London and third in the UK with a very diverse population of 250,000 (190,000 adults). Tower Hamlets also has the highest proportion of its children and older people in economic deprivation in the whole of England. We selected Tower Hamlets because knew it would be a challenge, with a complete absence of tennis clubs, park operators or school programmes in place.
The focus from the outset was to grow public participation through improving the park-based facilities, where the vast majority play their tennis. Key to building a community parks programme was first to improve the facilities which were very much redundant. We funded the re-surfacing of four floodlit courts at Bethnal Green Gardens and four courts including new fencing at Victoria Park. Tower Hamlets Tennis LTD was appointed the operator at both sites. The first year of operation saw Tower Hamlets Tennis process 13,000 online court bookings, nearly half were unique bookings.
In order to grow a culture of schools tennis in the borough, we employed a Schools Delivery Officer to sit amongst the Tower Hamlets Youth Sport Foundation structure. 31 schools have since been supported with equipment and training, and it’s estimated more than 2,000 children have been exposed to the sport.
If you'd like more information or would like to be involved in the Tower Hamlets pilot, please get in touch with our pilot lead Rachael Porsz.