Most courts closed over safety issues regarding light poles

Tennis at UQ has been thrown into chaos as, yesterday afternoon, the University closed most of the courts at UQ over safety issues regarding the light poles.

12 light poles are being removed this morning.  This will leave no lights on Courts 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14 and 16 and only partial lighting on Courts 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15 & A.

Unless the University can erect temporary lighting, we face the possibility of no night courts at UQ (except for Courts B, C, D & E) for several months.

This means that the Tuesday Night Practice Sessions and Thursday Night Social Tennis are suspended until further notice.

Matches in BNTA Fixtures are being transferred to Courts B, C, D & E at UQ and other courts around Brisbane.  We will be notifying the teams involved of the exact details, competition by competition.  People in these BNTA Fixtures (Monday Night Mixed, Tuesday Night Winter, Wednesday Night Threes and Wednesday Evening Pairs) will need to check their e-mails regularly.  There is little spare court capacity in Brisbane so it is not easy finding courts.

Whether the UQ Monday Night Fixtures can start and whether the UQ Thursday Night Fixtures can continue will depend on whether the University can erect temporary lighting.  

At this stage, we do not know if this is going to happen and we do not know exactly how long it will take to replace the light poles.  Two months has been mentioned.

Once we have any definite information, we will let everybody know.

Unfortunately, not everybody has provided an e-mail address.  Therefore, Team Captains, please make sure all your players are aware of the current situation and any further developments.

The University is removing many of the high light poles at the Tennis Centre, Aquatic Centre and various ovals after an urgent inspection of all light poles following an incident last Thursday when a light pole at the Aquatic Centre snapped off at its base and fell into the swimming pool.