The Minister with responsibility for sport has said the Government must “utilise the school estate in a much better way” to address concerns over a shortage of appropriate netball training facilities.
Constable Andy Jehan made the comments during a hearing of the Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel yesterday, while netballers worried about the sport’s future in Jersey protested outside.
Earlier this week, former England netball captain Serena Guthrie – who rose from the island’s local leagues to play on the world stage – said the Government’s new Oakfield Sports Centre “just isn’t fit for purpose”.
In comments endorsed by the Jersey Netball Association, she warned that shortfalls in access to appropriate, high-quality facilities could threaten the next generation of athletes.
With the Les Ormes netball courts scheduled for closure next March, the sports organisation will be left more than 1,600 hours short of court time during its main season.
Constable Jehan said the Government wanted to provide facilities, but also to “open up the school estate”.
“The Government of Jersey has probably got 13 indoor netball courts and we’ve got Oakfield just coming online,” he told the panel.
“Netball were involved in the concept design of that and have been involved as recently as about three weeks ago, with the design of Oakfield, because they’ve changed some of their requirements.
“So we can hold training on three courts, but we need to utilise the school estate in a much better way than we currently do.”
But panel member Deputy David Warr highlighted concerns around the need for “standalone” courts, noting that training sessions couldn’t necessarily be spread across the “fragmented” school estate.
Constable Jehan replied: “But what you can do is play school matches. So if school A is playing school B, they could play at one of the schools.”
He continued: “If you look around the country, in the UK, you’ll find very few four-court sites for netball.
“So to ask for a four-court solution, we’re not necessarily going to achieve that. We’ve got a three-court solution at Oakfield and we’re looking to utilise that as much as possible for netball.
“We’ve also got to help other sports, cricket and basketball to mention a couple.
“But some of these games, we’re busing young people from Le Rocquier, for example, to Les Ormes and then bringing them back, where we could be utilising a court at Le Rocquier to play against another school. So I think it’s about scheduling.”
The Minister added that the Government had upcoming meetings with netball representatives.
“We’ve had a number of meetings with netball and we’ll continue to liaise with them to try and accommodate their schedule,” he said.