The Launceston Basketball Association has rescued its season after negotiating with state government to claim Elphin Sports Centre back almost two months ahead of schedule, but it promises to come at an additional cost.
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Government has cut short its temporary arrangement to house a COVID-19 mobile testing centre in the car park of Launceston's premier basketball facility after Tasmania has yet to record new cases over the past four weeks.
The serious boost in public health has ensured, as from Wednesday, 80 people will be able to attend the indoor venue - up from 20 persons - before community sport is permitted to resume from June 26 with indoor numbers of up to 500 persons allowed.
It is a public win for LBA president Craig Gibson, who had spent countless hours in recent weeks "to get onto the right people" to convince state and federal authorities of the importance Elphin was to the sporting community.
"I think it was about the sheer number of community members that were going to be affected by it," he said.
"We've got 1700 members, just within the LBA, and we would be the largest user of Elphin. Without Elphin, we wouldn't be able to play."
The access to the venue will also benefit badminton, table tennis, futsal and jiu jitsu, which affects in excess of 3000 community users while the mobile clinic remained.
Gibson said there was still plenty of hard work to do and predicts it will take a further four weeks before competition is back up and running.
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Basketball Tasmania's best solution was for the LBA to consider playing games at Deloraine in what could have been a logistical dilemma.
"We were looking at other alternatives too to see or not whether we could find courts through any of the schools and other venues around town, which wouldn't have been ideal for us either, but all the state schools are still not looking at opening their school gyms up for outside users yet," Gibson said.
"We really couldn't have gone to another venue and without Elphin, through the sheer number of games we play in a week, even in a normal year, we struggle to find enough courts to get out our teams to play and train.
"Taking those four courts out of the mix was the end of the season, basically."
Despite the sudden easing of the restrictions, Gibson is preparing for a financial hit.
The lifting of numbers to engage in competition will be traded for a requirement of biosecurity officers and regular cleaning at the venue.
Gibson said the vast use of the number of courts needed would make costs more expensive than in past seasons.
"Being not-for-profit, we don't make money. So for us, we have to pass those costs onto our members," he said.
"Straight away with those costs, it makes the sport very expensive against the likes of an outdoor sport where you don't have to clean down the playing surface each night."
But it was a small price to pay after government were "trying to do the right thing" for all of the general public. "The clinic being there everyone fully understands why it needs to be around," he said.
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