No word yet on Elphin as basketball waits for government support

Following an open letter to the Tasmanian basketball community in which BTas boss Ben Smith said they should be "excited, inspired and outraged - in somewhat equal parts", both major parties committed to funding the construction of three new courts for Elphin Sports Centre as part of the NTCA redevelopment.

A month after the election and Smith is hopeful the government's words will become actions.

"We are currently seeking an audience with the new government to see where those projects have landed," he said.

"Our expectation is that those projects will go ahead and I suppose what we want to do is get them to go ahead as quickly as possible."

He added that the council was also a key player.

"Because I think they'd already done some planning work and they've got some drawings of what the final facilities might look like," he said.

"But how advanced that is? I don't know. So I suppose the thing for us is to just keep trying to make sure that the momentum is there to get things moving."

The scheduling nightmare that has been community basketball has not let up in the meantime, with the additional three courts only scratching the surface of what is required in Launceston.

"The report that the Launceston council did a couple of years ago prescribed I think it was something like 16 or 18 courts for the greater Launceston area," Smith said.

"Even if the Elphin project gets started and finished in the next six weeks, it'll still be 15 shy of where we need to get to and that's what I mean about the scheduling being so constrained by the availability of courts.

"We end up putting games on at all sorts of here, there and everywhere with times. You can't put everyone on at the time that everyone wants to play."

While Basketball Tasmania has identified using school gyms as an interim solution, the problem remains that 57 per cent of clubs have "no clubroom, home, bar, canteen, or somewhere they can meet and socialise, somewhere where they can hang up their premiership flags and trophies".

"It's actually amazing that basketball is in such a healthy position, given that constraint," Smith said.

"A football club wouldn't last two weeks if it didn't have a home ground and a clubroom."

With Elphin initially placed "seventh or eighth" in the pecking order for the NTCA redevelopment plan, and Tennis World Launceston 'turning soil' in May for its long-awaited single-storey clubhouse, Smith said he was successful in moving the basketball precinct up the priority list.

"I think that all the dust is now settled [with the election], so hopefully we can start seeing if we can get some things progressing," he said.

"So far we've been successful in getting elevated up the list, but obviously, nothing's actually been locked away yet."

The government reaffirmed their commitment to the project, stating that they will "deliver on its commitment to invest [in a] $21.5 million upgrade of Elphin Sports Centre".

"We look forward to working with Basketball Tasmania and the City of Launceston Council as the project progresses," the statement read.