Tennis and Pickleball Courts
Table 3-4 summarizes the location and number of tennis and pickleball courts in Tillsonburg. With the resurfacing of the existing tennis courts and the addition of three new pickleball courts, the Town has a balance in the supply of both types of formal facilities. Four pop-up pickleball courts are still available to accommodate activity. The addition of three dedicated pickleball courts effectively provides new facilities for both sports, since pickleball and tennis are no longer sharing courts. As new introductions to supply, the impact these changes will have on use at both types of courts remains to be seen. A monitoring program should be instituted to track the use of all courts, including the pop-up pickleball facilities. Given that the courts are not scheduled by the Town or organized clubs, the monitoring program should comprise a planned rotating check of all court locations at different days and times of the week to document use. It should also record information on numbers of people waiting to play at each location as well as any calls made to the Town to report
details on difficulties getting access to the courts (e.g., which courts, times, etc.). The task of collecting and documenting this information could be assigned to a summer student. If put in place to coincide with court openings in 2024, it will provide the Town with a good sense of a full season of activity, and unmet demand, which can be used to inform the potential need for more courts. An additional year of tracking can contribute to information on if/how the availability of new facilities generates growth in participation and if local clubs organize. At that time, the results of the monitoring program can be used as the basis of a study to better confirm court needs over the term of the Master Plan, the role of volunteer clubs in using Town facilities to provide tennis and pickleball to the community, and the need to co-locate courts for organized, and potential area tournament, use. Preliminary projections assume (without use information from monitoring) that the existing number of courts are used to capacity. For tennis, therefore, three (3) dedicated facilities produce a population supply ratio of 1 court per 6,500 (19,503/3).
Table 3-4: Town of Tillsonburg tennis and pickleball courts
Location
# Tennis # Pickleball
Use/Facility Notes
Tillsonburg Community Centre*
3
3
as of spring 2024: the existing tennis courts were resurfaced and three new pickleball courts were added to supply, providing three permanent dedicated facilities of each type.
J.L. Scott McLean Outdoor Recreation Pad
4 pop-ups new in 2023, nets provided
* located in Optimist Park
62
Town of Tillsonburg | DRAFT Parks and Recreation Master Plan
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