In a big win for the Launceston basketball community, the state government have matched Labor's election commitment for Launceston's Elphin Sports Centre upgrade.
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It comes one week after the opposition made their funding announcement of $21.5 million for new basketball facilities at Launceston Basketball Association's home.
The commitment would result in the construction of three additional courts, improvements to the existing four courts, the construction of a new shared function centre, change rooms and more parking spaces.
Without adding to Labor's upgrade plans, Liberal candidate for Bass Rob Fairs announced a re-elected Liberal government would invest $21.5 million to reinvigorate Elphin.
"We want to see the nearly 4000 games of community basketball played in Launceston each year supported and thriving," he said.
"We will do this by not only delivering an upgrade to Elphin - our $43.6 million development of the Hub at Mowbray will mean that even as Launceston grows our sports can keep up too."
The issue
LBA have more than 3500 registered participants and 630-plus teams competing annually. President Craig Gibson said membership was growing 15-20 per cent year-on-year.
Many point to the Tasmania JackJumpers' success in the NBL in their opening three seasons but Gibson has emphasised the court shortage issue has been going much longer.
It is predicted there is a shortage of 17 courts and LBA - among numerous other issues - are being forced to turn hundreds of people away and some games are finishing beyond 11pm due to lack of court space.
LBA operate out of Elphin but also use college and school gyms to play their games.
Gibson said having seven courts in one location would make LBA more sustainable.
"It saves us on staff, at the moment we're spread across three or four venues a night," he said.
Reaction
It was a satisfying day for the many people involved in LBA's push for more courts.
"It's fantastic news for basketball, it just shows that everyone is finally starting to pay some attention to the growth, popularity and the number of people in the community that actually want to access basketball," Gibson said.
The president explained LBA had been chipping away at the cause since before he got involved seven years ago.
"I'm one in a long line before me," he said.
Gibson added an infrastructure working group of volunteers was formed about 12 months ago to ramp up the effort.
"We've had a lot of talk from everyone - both sides of parliament - but never really any delivery on what we needed," he said.
Keeping the pressure on
Gibson said he wanted to see action soon after the March 23 election.
"I'm hopeful within 12 months of the election we can actually have a solid architecturally-designed plan for what they're going to do here," he said.
"We've seen some concepts that are pretty new."
The president said he expected to have access to the new courts in three to five years.
"It's still too long, we'd like it to be quicker but realistically that's how long it's going to take to actually get equipment, get construction started and get some new facilities delivered," he said.
While Thursday was a landmark day in the push, Gibson knows the job is not done yet.
"We'll keep pushing, yes it's an election commitment, the money has now been offered but we've actually got to get that delivered," he said.
"As soon as we find out who is in parliament as of next weekend, that's when we start pushing them and go right 'what's the timeline, when do we start work, what do you need from us to actually make this happen and happen as fast as possible'."
Where will new courts go?
Gibson said the new courts would extend Elphin's footprint.
"From my understanding, there'll be two courts over (the current) carpark and a third one on the end of this building so next to where court four is," Gibson said.
"Then the entire structure will be in under one roof line."