MEMBERS of Towerhill Squash Club have been left holding their racquets following the planned demolition of the squash courts they have occupied for years.
Club member Chris Thoday said yesterday the team had just found out that instead of four of its six courts being demolished as first planned, all would be scrapped to make way for an extension to the new owner's gym.
Following the disbandment of Dromana Squash Club last year and the Peninsula Squash Club in January, the future of squash on the peninsula was in doubt.
Adding to the troubles, squash courts at the Hastings Leisure Centre were lost when the facility became the Hastings Community Hub and some Hastings players moved to private facilities owned by Lysaghts Steel.
Mornington Peninsula Shire mayor Graham Pittock, who is president of the the Peninsula Squash Racquets Association, which includes Frankston's Tower Hill, Eliza Village, Lysaghts, Rosebud and Tyabb clubs, said he had taken the recent closures to heart.
"I'm putting in the foundations for the Dromana Squash and Fitness Centre," he said yesterday.
Cr Pittock said he was inspired to build a state-of-the-art facility 2? years ago following the release of a council sports strategy, in which squash was listed as No. 12 of 13 sports which would be prioritised on the peninsula.
Cr Pittock's centre will include eight squash courts and a gym, with a focus on recruiting young players.
The mayor's daughter Amelia has twice represented Australia in squash at the Commonwealth Games and also in a world teams event and he said young people were the key to squash success.
"Squash fraternities in the sixties, seventies and eighties failed to develop the youth and now there is no one coming through," he said.
Squash was booming in Europe and the United States and the sport could give students wishing to study higher education overseas an edge, Cr Pittock said.
"We have such a great history of squash champions and they really want to impart their knowledge."
Mr Thoday agreed that the problem with squash on the peninsula was the lack of young people interested in the sport.
He said the Tower Hill club would love to see facilities built in Baxter near the tennis courts but the 50 members would probably be incorporated into a club such as Cranbourne if they did not receive financial support from local council or businesses.
"It's a shame, [as] we're the biggest club on the peninsula," he said. "People of all ages can play squash and it's not dependent on the weather."
Cr Pittock said squash was the perfect sport to build overall fitness and reflexes and that the skills, particularly in reaction speeds, translated well to sports such as football.
The Dromana Squash and Fitness Centre will open to the public in about six months in the industrial estate off Collins Road, Dromana.
Cr Pittock said although he was yet to finalise membership details, the public would not have to be members of his fitness centre to use the squash facilities.
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