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Camden News - by TOM FOOT
Published: 11 September 2008

Staff outside the golf and tennis school last year

Royal Parks reject tennis court offer

PARKS bosses are refusing to reopen the tennis courts in Regent’s Park despite residents offering to pay for it.
The Royal Parks Agency (RPA) terminated the lease to the Regent’s Park Golf and Tennis School in March last year in anticipation of a privately-run five-a-side football complex being built in its place.
But after a heated campaign the plan was thrown out and the popular courts that had been in the park for 99 years remain closed.
Malcolm Kafetz, chairman of the Friends of Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, said: “It is really disgraceful because we have told [the RPA] that we will pay for the courts to be restored and for its upkeep – but the they have rejected our offer. They keep referring to a report by Dame Jennifer Jenkins that called the school an “eyesore”. She is one of our members and she has told me she is hopping mad because she didn’t say that at all. She has written to the parks to tell them that.”
The body of tennis coach Yuri Ouvarov was found hanging near the courts in December and a coroner later linked the death to the closure of the school where he had worked for 15 years.
The death led to calls from the family and his colleagues for the school to be reopened in his name.
A spokesman for the RPA confirmed they will under no circumstances reopen the school and would return the site to meadowland.
The tennis courts will be one of the topics for discussion in the annual meeting of the Friends of Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill on October 2 in the Danish Church from 7pm.

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