Tunbridge Wells Borough Council elected Mayor Joy Podbury together with her husband Bob attended St Johns Tennis Club on 22nd May to officially open the new grass tennis courts.  St John's were pleased that several representatives from our partners Mental Health Resource were able to attend.

After cutting the ribbon and speeches, the Mayor was presented with a bouquet and then entertained by a tennis competition played by members of the JTS Juniors Academy. The players demonstrated a high standard of tennis skills and there was commentary by their excellent coach Steve Jarrett.

The Mayor congratulated the Club, led by Chairman Laura Collins, praising the club’s friendly community spirit and the hard work put in by the members to create such an impressive standard of facilities.

The Club’s grass courts have been recognized by the LTA to be one of the county’s special achievements in tennis and they played a crucial part in the club’s success in being awarded Kent LTA Club of the Year 2020.

The preparation of the grass surfacing started at the end of 2019 and thereafter had to be carefully managed to satisfy the need for safety in guarding against Covid-19 while at the same time meeting the technical requirements for creating grass courts. This was all done on limited finances to successfully transform the redundant bowling green into two grass courts. As part of the refurbishment a redundant water storage and sprinkler system were restored and a demountable protective netting system was designed and constructed.

The grass courts will now be maintained under the supervision of the Grass Court Committee and the dedicated group of volunteers who assist in maintaining the grass during the summer so that all members can enjoy playing on them. The Club looks forward to future competitive grass tennis and maybe a future Wimbledon champion …..we can only dream.

Contributing to the success of the day, despite the rain, was the hard work of the team running the revitalized Bar, and volunteers who provided snacks and ran an excellent raffle with prizes donated by Intersport, Kirthon Restaurant, Tesco Mini store and generous club members.

The venue was shown off in colour ready for the event with some excellent border and container planting schemes created by the dedicated team of gardening volunteers.

Thank you to all who supported and made the day a success.