PROPOSED NEW READING TABLE TENNIS CENTRE
BULLETIN 5
One year has now passed since the Reading Borough Council (RBC) offered the Steering Committee the opportunity to put forward a proposal for a Table Tennis Centre on a site in an area of deprivation in Reading. The choice of such an area gives the committee more scope when applying to Sport England or other funding bodies for grants to build the centre. It may seem a long time but, as a senior member of RBC who is impressed with the effort so far stated, many projects fall by the wayside long before the stage that this committee have reached. This is due to the massive amount of time and effort that has to be put in to make the project feasible.
I can report that the final pages of the Business Plan are currently being put together. This is no easy task as, for funding purposes, a three year ‘Income & Expenditure’ forecast has to be made. This has involved putting together a weekly calendar of usage, assessing possible usage by members, non members (such as the local community), schools and other organisations such as Youth Clubs, over 50 Clubs, Disability Groups and Women’s Groups. Then there is the need for coaching sessions for all from the local community, through Junior and Senior groups to the Elite Squads. All this has to be achieved in a way that it is affordable to all whilst paying the running costs of the Centre. Added to this is the problem of assessing the cost of the lease, business rates, heating, lighting, water rates, telephones etc. of a building which is just a couple of drawings on a piece of paper at present. There is also the need for some paid staff to be accounted for although it is felt that much of the work will be carried out by volunteers, similar to the Cippenham Club and, hopefully this will come from members of the RDTTA which fully supports the actions of the Steering Committee.
Alan Dines is currently finalising the response to the questions from the Planning Officer prior to putting in for Outline Planning Permission. There have been a couple of awkward questions which has taken time to contemplate and come up with suitable answers. Hopefully, these will result in a successful application for planning permission.
Once the Business Plan is completed and Planning Permission granted the next hurdle is to obtain funding for the project. The committee are pinning their hopes that this can be granted from the Sport England Sustainable Facilities Fund. Lisa Bosley and I have already entered much of the data into an application on the website but this cannot be completed until the work above is finalised.
My request in the last bulletin for volunteers to come forward to help with minutes, funding and publicity did not receive any response at all which is very disappointing. The proposed centre will have a definite impact on table tennis in Reading. Hopefully it can regenerate our sport and produce more International players from Reading as it did in previous years. It can be done with your help. Let me know if you can assist in any small way in completing this project.
Peter Bradley – Project Leader