Big serve for tennis change

Andrew Mathieson
A DEVELOPER’S new plans to build a tennis complex on the site of the former Geelong Golf Club is all about “maximising profit”, according to a councillor.
Cr Stretch Kontelj said Living Links’ latest proposal for 20 floodlit tennis courts including a showcourt to seat 500 patrons and a gymnasium was “just a ruse” to establish a housing estate.
“To remove people from the expectation of open space and the golf course to another leisure type of facility and eventually nothing other than broad-acre residential and commercial development is what I’ve always suspected,” Cr Kontelj said.
“I never believed for one minute it would be developed into a golf complex.”
Geelong Golf Club agreed to hand over its course to Links Living to pay off a million-dollar debt in exchange for a redeveloped course. Links Living eventually kicked the members out and locked the course after the failure of its initial development plan.
When Links Living revealed the latest plan late last week, the developer also said it was awaiting approval of a proposed home centre for supermarket chain Woolworths on the site.
Cr Kontelj pointed out the site was already a few hundred metres from a North Geelong indoor tennis centre.
Links Living managing director Stephen Head said the changes did not compromise the nine-hole golf course plan.
However, he believed the Geelong region was already “blessed with many other fine golf courses”.
“It is fair to say we are reviewing whether another golf course is the best recreational use for this valuable land,” he said.
Links Living announced it had “very exciting” discussions this month with Tennis Australia.
“We both see considerable merit in replacing the golf course with a large regional, public tennis complex to service not only Geelong bit most of Western Victoria,” Mr Head said.
Tennis Australia community affairs manager Robin O’Neill said Links Living had approached the peak tennis organisation with the proposal.
Mr O’Neill said Tennis Australia would investigate the venue’s potential but a commitment would be “too far down the track”.
“We don’t have an opinion one way or another,” he said.
“We’ve only agreed to be party to the investigation.”