21/10/2025
Response to the “Public Statement on Tennis at Pavilion Park”
From Chilton & Sedgefield Tennis Club (CSTC)
*You may also click on the photos if it's easier for you to read that way (5 pages).*
We would like to respond to several factual inaccuracies and misleading claims in the recent post issued by Chilton Town Council “on behalf of the Chilton Miners Welfare Recreation Ground (Trustees).”
Link: https://www.facebook.com/ChiltonTCouncil/posts/pfbid0Y9z4WPuvPYZdJ5ScZakJKFBeNZ5x8Sswo7SpGYQGFRE2jQy6UQb5iq28JGV2gPNul
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1. Use of Courts
“3 of which were for sole use of the Chilton and Sedgefield Tennis Club and one made available for community use at specific times” – quote from Council's post
This is incorrect.
All four courts are available for public booking through the booking website during park opening hours, with all booking fees paid to the Council (none retained by the club).
CSTC members are entitled to use three of the four courts as part of their membership (free of charge booking is required).
Only during organised events such as county league matches (approx. 15-20 days per year) and club tournaments (2–3 per year) were all four courts booked for a few hours at a time — a standard practice across all tennis clubs hosting competitions.
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2. £5,000 “Out of Hours” Access
“£5K for opening the park to accommodate out of hours access for Tennis Club members.” – quote from Council's post
The claim that the Council spent £5,000 “to open the park for Tennis Club members outside normal hours” is misleading.
This cost arose entirely from the Council’s own decision — not from any request or requirement by the club. For a long time, CSTC committee members and team captains were trusted with access to keys to lock the park after matches that occasionally finished slightly after the 9:00 pm summer closing time. This arrangement worked perfectly well and cost the Council nothing.
However, in March 2020, the Council revoked the club’s key access after alleging — without any evidence — that “around 200 keys” had been copied and distributed by 200 members of the tennis club (the story was later changed to allegedly also involving some Chilton residents). No proof, investigation, or police report was ever provided. The claim makes little sense, as there was no reason for anyone to copy keys when legitimate access was already in place via the code-secured keypad.
Following this, the Council decided to hire a contractor to wait and close the gate after matches — typically on fewer than 20 occasions across the whole period and usually for only 15–20 minutes after 9:00 pm — and paid a total of £5,000 for this minimal work. The Council also replaced the locks on both the main gate and the pavilion, incurring further unnecessary expense as a result of this unfounded “200 keys” narrative.
When the Club later offered to resume responsibility for locking up to save the Council money, the offer was briefly accepted but soon withdrawn again for the same reason.
It is therefore wrong and unfair for the Council to portray this £5,000 expense as a “subsidy” to the Tennis Club — it was entirely a product of the Council’s own decisions and mismanagement.
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3. Maintenance and Cost Figures
“professional court cleaning at £1750, painting per court £7500, resurfacing £66,000 per court totalling £12,340 per year pro-rata over a 10-year period” – quote from Council's post
These figures are incorrect and inconsistent with the Council’s own spreadsheet presented to the club in January 2025:
• Professional court cleaning: £1,750 is for all 4 courts, not per court.
• Painting: £7,500 for both front courts, every 7 years, not per court or per year.
• Resurfacing: £54,000 for two courts, not £66,000 each, and this should last 15 years or more.
• The “£12,340 per year” figure does not appear in the Council’s financial document and cannot be reconciled mathematically.
The Council also relied on only one contractor quote, and their proposed maintenance schedule includes unnecessary costs such as a “monthly blow-down” at £960 per year, which CSTC do not recommend.
Another point:
"Please note: maintaining the number of courts for club/competition requirements and providing out of hours opening to accommodate them is significantly higher than general community use." – quote from Council's post
We strongly disagree with the statement that maintaining the courts for club and competition use is “significantly higher” than for general community use. The club has never demanded pristine courts, only that they be kept safe and playable. In reality, the Council has failed to maintain the courts properly despite being obligated to do so. The only professional cleaning took place in December 2024, and before that, the Council attempted to cut costs by using an untrained person with a power jet washer, which ended up damaging the court surface.
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4. £27,266 “Annual Total”
“If you add in general maintenance, utility costs, cleaning, inspections, repairs, out of hours access, this rises to £27,266 per year.” – quote from Council's post
This figure is baseless.
• Tennis courts have minimal ongoing maintenance costs: nets, posts, and fencing rarely need repair.
• “Utility costs” are negligible since the floodlights have been unusable since installation. Tennis club has minimal use of the pavilion.
• “Out-of-hours access” applies only to 2023 and resulted from the Council’s own administrative decision, not club use.
There is no transparent accounting to justify the £27,266 figure.
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5. Fees Paid by the Club
“The Tennis Club to date paid a fee of £800 per year between 2020/21- 2022/23 then £1200 2023/24- 2024/25 totalling £4,800 for which they received access to those facilities outlined above.” – quote from Council's post
This is factually wrong.
CSTC has bank records showing total payments to the Council of £9,895.38 since 2016, including public court booking fees that went directly to the Council.
Annual Fees Paid:
2016–17 £800
2017–18 £800
2018–19 £800
2019–20 Free (Covid)
2021 £800
2023 (Feb & Jun) £1,600
2024 (May & Nov) £2,400
2025 (Apr) £1,200
Total Annual Fees: £8,400
Public Court Booking Fees (paid to Council): £1,495.38
Grand Total Paid: £9,895.38
Meanwhile, the Council has only paid for one professional cleaning (£1,750 in 2024). It is unclear where the remainder of these funds have gone.
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6. “Sink Fund” Proposal
“To this end and contrary to their recent comments we agreed that we would maintain the subsidised fee of £1200 per year, but required then to contribute to a sink fund for which the Trust would match fund to cover the direct on-going maintenance cost for the tennis courts.” – quote from Council's post
The sink fund was proposed by the Club, not the Council.
Our condition was that it should be a jointly managed account, to ensure transparency and prevent waste — particularly in light of the £5,000 out-of-hours cost (equating to £250 for 15 minutes of waiting time).
Given such inefficiency, the Club has legitimate concerns about the Council’s financial management.
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7. “Comparable to Other Clubs”
“This is very much in line with how other Tennis Clubs operate” – quote from Council's post
This is false.
• Billingham TC (on council-owned land): four courts + clubhouse, no rent.
• Bishop Auckland TC (on council-owned land): pays £600 per year.
CSTC is not a private club, yet is being asked to pay as if it were one — while still facing restrictions such as winter park closures at 4:00 pm and no working floodlights.
No other functioning club operates under such limits.
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8. “0.6% of Chilton Residents”
“a Tennis Club that has a very small proportion of residents (0.6%) from Chilton within its membership (we were provided with data at the time that showed only 27 members out of their 90 members overall were Chilton Residents). This was deemed not to be a good use of Chilton taxpayers’ money.” – quote from Council's post
This statistic is misleading.
Currently, around 30% of CSTC members live in Chilton, the largest single group by location.
For a club that only relocated from Sedgefield a few years ago, this represents significant local growth and strong community demand.
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9. “Investment for the Benefit of Residents”
“we are committed to investing initially in two courts to provide discounted fees to residents for court access, coaching and holiday activities and we will continue to look to identify funding opportunities for multipurpose use of the additional courts for the benefit of Chilton residents.” – quote from Council's post
While the statement sounds positive, the exclusion of CSTC contradicts that goal.
When the Council applied for £40,000 in Section 106 funding (2016) to build the two front courts, CSTC’s move to Chilton was a key factor in securing approval from Durham County Council.
Now, after benefiting from that funding, the Council is pushing the Club out instead of working together to develop tennis in the town — a move that undermines community sport and the intent of the original funding, not to mention that Chilton Council neglected their obligations to maintain the courts over the years.
It’s important to highlight that the need for three courts was clearly established long before the club relocated to Chilton. The Friends of the Park (FOTP) meeting minutes, taken before our move, confirm this. The minutes from 29th September 2016 state: “Sedgefield Tennis Club need to have three courts available to be able to use the facility for league matches.” This requirement is also referenced in the February and April 2017 FOTP minutes. The Council was fully aware of this need when they invited the Tennis Club to relocate to Chilton in 2016, as league participation and structured competition were essential parts of the club’s community and development goals.
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In Summary
The Council’s public statement contains multiple factual inaccuracies and misleading interpretations.
CSTC has paid nearly £10,000 to the Council over the years, received minimal maintenance in return, and faced restrictive access that made growth difficult.
Despite these challenges, the Club has brought county-level competition to Chilton, grown local membership, and made repeated efforts to cooperate — including proposing a stepped rent increase to around £3,600 per year.
The Council’s current position is neither financially justified nor in the community’s best interest.
We remain ready to engage constructively to find a fair and transparent solution that keeps tennis thriving in Chilton.
In an upcoming post, we’ll be sharing both a short summary and a full, detailed account of our dealings with the Council. Please stay tuned and continue to support the Chilton & Sedgefield Tennis Club. Thank you for reading.
