Brighton’s oldest tennis club, Badgers, has been served with an eviction notice by its landlords.
The Chotai family, who also own the Kamsons pharmacy chain, have enacted an eviction clause in the club’s tenancy, giving them two months to vacate.
The club and its 200-plus members, including a thriving youth section, have been battling for survival since learning that their landlords want to clear the site to build luxury housing.
The tennis courts and clubhouse, in Church Place, Kemp Town, had their status as an asset of community value renewed just last month by Brighton and Hove City Council.
The club secretary, Mary Herbert, joined as a member when she moved to Brighton to retire in 2010.
She said: “For me personally, it was a way that I could meet people. I moved to Brighton and knew nobody.
“It’s not a typical affluent kind of tennis club. It’s very much a community club. We’re on the edge of Whitehawk.
“It’ll be a huge loss – not just to the members but also to the community generally.
“We’ve had meetings with their planning consultant and architect, all sorts of things.
“We thought they were pursuing a partial development site, which would have enabled us to continue.
“Nearly every tennis club in Brighton is at capacity. We have over 200 members who will have nowhere to go and play – and they do this in the middle of Wimbledon.
“There are some park courts that people could go and play on but that’s not the same as a tennis club.
“You don’t have the same kind of ethos and atmosphere. It’s just totally different.”
The club site, which has been a home to tennis since 1895, was listed by the council as an asset of community value in 2018 in recognition of its health and wellbeing role in east Brighton
But being listed as an asset of community value would not prevent the owners from applying to change the use of the land after evicting the club, even if the listing would be considered in planning application discussions.
The club plans to explore its legal options and hopes that the community will rally around it again to keep it open.
The Chotai family bought the site in 2010, with the intention of applying for planning permission to turn it into housing.
The landlords granted a lease to the club’s head coach when the planning application ran into problems.
The head coach surrendered the lease in 2013 when the rent trebled – but the club restructured and community support pressured the landlords into granting the club a new five-year lease.
In 2018, the club campaigned publicly again to ask the landlords to negotiate a new lease, with one petition attracting more than 2,000 signatures.
The club was given a tenancy at will which enabled the landlords to terminate the tenancy with two months’ notice on Thursday night (6 July).
The clubhouse has a kitchen, licensed bar, gardens and lawns as well as accessible facilities and is often hired out for meetings and parties.
Alongside its tennis programme, the club hosts Healthwalks, fitness classes and free tennis sessions for local children.
The Chotai family was contacted for comment.
Hopefully the local Council will not look favourably on the planning applications. Added to that, where possible, change your pharmacy.
Brighton council could grant these guys permission to take over Preston park tennis as it’s in a bit of a state and could do with being run by a club
That’s actually a pretty neat idea, there’s funding available for those sorts of things as well.
I expect the Break down Garage next to it will be next
Shame on you, Chotai family! Badgers isa real asset to the community but your greed and lack of social responsibility will take out this valuable community asset. I shan’t be using Kamsons from now on.
The truth is that this private members club was sold to The Chotai brothers by two of the clubs members as a site for development that was ten years ago The brothers have offered to fund alternative PUBLIC tennis courts for the people of this area but not a private members club One never in all the publicity press coverage and condemning and insulting of the Chotai brothers hears that it was actually two of the clubs members who owned the club and sold it for development
This is just pure naked greed, destroying a treasured community asset to make more money, and damaging the area for ever
This SO needs to be kept as it is – it has a long history that is part of our heritage. Heritage is very important to people & gives the place you live a sense of identity! We have enough luxury housing – it’s rather obscene
this obsession with money!
And yet another terrific Kemp Town place under threat – very sad
Let’s all get behind the club & see what we can do!
It hurts that we could even lose the Club. An incredibly active leasure sports focal point of Brighton should not even entertain the idea of being knocked down, for what flats. Destroy something good for mental health and erect dark man sized containers on once a buzzing area. Ridiculous
The development will no doubt be for buyers mostly from abroad for investment.
If planning is to be given, given only for social housing and cheep rent. We need to house local people first. Otherwise, leave the tennis courts there. ……let’s be honest, the above is a dream I guess.
This is an outrageous action by a family which has profited hugely from its association with Brighton but, when it has the chance to support a historic and loved local asset, has decided to make more money and close it down instead. Shame on them and I’ll be using a different pharmacy from now on.
Has Lord Bassam remonstrated?
Meanwhile, as others have suggested, boycott Kamsons. If people do not use chain stores, they collapse, as we saw with Philip Green’s wretched emporia.
The most local one has pretty much the entire prescription share at the moment for the area. Asda, Lloyds, and Boots nearby have very little in comparison.
I moved to Brighton in 2015, for all the good Brighton has to offer it also in my opinion, is one of the most rundown neglected seaside locations in the country. The council should be opening more places like this not closing them.
Nothing to do with the council!
Private club renting space from a private owner.
The same can be said of Pubs, but there have been cases of the locals turning owners decisions round, and having to buy the premises as a Community Assett.
This tennis club goes beyond being a Pub, and has more members than any Pub has regulars, plus it provides exercise and community.
The tennis courts / land have been registered as an ACV so the club does get first dibs on buying the site at the commercial rate should it be for sale. But it doesn’t mean the site is immune from its owner asserting their rights to develop it.
What I was referring to is that the club isn’t the councils responsibility so isn’t the one closing it down.
And In other news: Brighton to be evicted by London, UAE, and other faceless corporate types, in order to make way for the ‘new and ‘improved” Brighton.
To be fair is a good location for buy to let’s I will be interested in how this develops. Hopefully not over priced and priced to investors and first time buyers too of course
I doubt they’d be given planning permission for B2L since BHCC has been stamping them out whenever they can.
Dream on … they will milk this site to the ma imum. Another regeneration that will actually be degeneration. Boycott Kamsons.
If the owner of an Asset of Community Value decides to sell, there is an ‘interim moratorium’ period of six weeks in which they cannot sell the property. This is to allow time for any community interest group to request to be treated as a potential bidder for the asset.
The community interest group does not have to provide any evidence of intention or financial resources to make such a bid. A Community Interest group must have one or more of the following structures:
A charity
A Parish Council
A community interest company
A company limited by guarantee that is non profit distributing
An industrial and provident society that is non profit distributing
If a community interest group makes a request during the interim period, then a full six-month moratorium will operate. During this period the owner may continue to market and negotiate sales, but may not exchange contracts or enter into a binding contract to do so later. There is one exception. The owner may sell to a community interest group during the moratorium period.
After the moratorium period – either the six weeks if there has been no community interest, or the full six months – the owner is free to sell to whomever they choose and at whatever price.
In short, two tennis coaches (Mel Bowden now at Queens Park and Tony Clark at Wickwoods Country club) sold the club from under the noses of the members to the Chotai brothers – who unfortunately took no professional advice about the viability of closing it down and building on the land. What remains is a lose lose situation for the club members and their Kamson pharmacy owning landlords, who basically bought “a pig in a poke”; their error is now being taken out on the innocent club members. It strikes me that its not just money but also pride which underlies this eviction at the expense of the health and well being of the 200+ members of this thriving club. One can only appeal to the better nature of the Chotai family to talk to the club and work to find a mutually beneficial compromise ….. sadly the only winners in this tale thus far are the two aforementioned coaches ….
One does not appeal to one’s better nature by latently racist condemnation insults and cries of Boycott their business I can only imagine this will harden their resolve to exercise their perfectly legal rights to evict having been sold the club specifically for development by two of its former members who would seem to be the only parties to have benefitted enormously at least fiscally in this sad and ill interpreted saga .
Unfortunately it looks like the owners can do what they want.
Look back to 2010 when the previous owners (or trustees) sold the land.
“The Chotai family bought the site in 2010, with the intention of applying for planning permission to turn it into housing.”
The question should have been raised then when they said what they were planning.
Yes you’re right, the owners can do what they want. But in 2010 there was no consultation with the members prior to the sale and the Chotai family clearly thought that building on the land would not present any problems for them – hence the current lose lose situation as planning permission is unlikely to be granted and meanwhile the members lose their beloved club.