MORE than £100,000 is to be spent on converting tennis courts in Blaenavon to a multi-use games area and introducing a gated pay-to-play entry system.

The work at Blaenavon Tennis Courts is being funded through money paid by housing developers and a grant from Sport Wales, but charging will initially only apply to organised groups for tennis.

The courts will be converted to a multi-use games area, known as a MUGA, for tennis, netball and basketball.

Torfaen Borough Council has also agreed the refurbishment of the tennis courts will include a gated technology system that allows access through a Tennis Wales online booking system, known as Club Spark.

Hourly sessions will have to be booked no more than 24 hours in advance, but there will be no charge for casual users initially though schools and tennis clubs will be asked to buy a £39 annual pass that will give them a set number of hourly bookings.

The council is introducing the charges for schools and organised clubs at other courts it is responsible for ahead of consideration of a borough wide charging policy for tennis courts in the 2025/26 financial year.

The council has more than £30,000 in community benefit funding, paid under a Section 106 legal agreement, from the former Hillside School development and has also been awarded £102,297 from Sport Wales.

It will use the Sport Wales funding and £15,235 from the Section 106 funds, for the refurbishment of the tennis courts with the remaining £15,819 from the developers to be used as a contingency for any unforeseen works and ongoing maintenance costs of the courts that are already the responsibility of the council.