STATEMENT BY THE DIRECTORS OF QUEENS PARK TENNIS CLUB
Mel Bowden, Conrad Brunner, Stephen Davies and Alan Sanchez.

Queens Park Tennis Club is happy to announce it has formally signed a long-term lease agreement with Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC).

On Friday, the club finalised a 25 year lease for the six tennis courts and the clubhouse. This agreement will secure the long-term future of the club, and allow QPTC, a Community Interest Company, to take full financial and legal responsibility for the entire facility.

“This agreement will allow our club to flourish as a self-funded, LTA-registered tennis club in its own right. We have done that successfully since 2017, and this lease now formalises that into a legal reality,” says QPTC director Conrad Brunner.

QPTC director Mel Bowden says: “It’s taken a while! This process was complicated by issues less to do with tennis and more to do with the management and upkeep of the clubhouse. But we are there now. The issues have now been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.“

The QPTC directors would like to thank Mel for his time and effort in handling the lease negotiations. We would also like to express our gratitude to Rob Walker and Margo Burkiewicz from BHCC, and Matthew Glazer from the LTA, for their help and support. As a club, QPTC has achieved a great deal over the last five years, but it was the council’s decision to green light this project in 2017, allowing QPTC to manage its own affairs, which has made this agreement possible. We feel that the overall result of this decision has been hugely positive for our hundreds of members, and the thousands of visitors who play at our club every year.

We would also like to acknowledge the huge contribution by former directors and club officials, past and present, whose many hours of volunteer work have helped us reach this important milestone, in particular Pauline O’Reilly, Charlie Baines, Mark Cull, Keith Stollery and Denise Tyler.