A WHARFEDALE tennis club has scaled down refurbishment plans after deciding it could not accept a major funding offer.

Pool-in-Wharfedale LTC had been offered a package that would have allowed a £74,000 scheme, involving resurfacing work and the installation of floodlights, to proceed.

The offer from the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and Yorkshire Tennis, however, also involved taking out a loan of nearly £28,000 and establishing a £3,600 a year ‘sinking fund’ to cover future work.

Pool LTC held an Extraordinary General Meeting on April 28 to see if the club should take on such commitments, and decided it should not.

Chair David Broome, however, said substantial improvements were still in the pipeline for the club’s two courts.

He said: “The decision was that the financial burden on a small club with a small committee was too much to allow the full project to go forward.

“We plan to resurface the courts with the club’s own funds and hopefully to progress to lighting further down the line, when club funds allow.”