Funding shortage forces Basketball ACT to sell Belconnen block

They've paid almost $600,000 in rates over the past decade, but have been unable to gain any ACT government assistance to build indoor courts to ease the strain on facilities.

Basketball ACT's decision comes as they prepare to meet with clubs Thursday night about their plans to finish the winter season, with competition hopefully resuming mid November.

That resumption could be without the use of school courts, which will remain close indefinitely.

It means they might be forced to split rounds over two weeks or even start senior games at 11pm in order to finish their winter season by the end of the year, with their summer season already pushed back to January.

Basketball ACT chief executive David Simpson said there'd been a 20 per cent growth in players since the coronavirus pandemic with 100 more junior teams and 70 more senior teams.

But there hasn't been an increase in facilities.

It means the anticipated basketball boom on the back of the Boomers' historic Olympic bronze medal will struggle to get on the court.

Basketball ACT bought the block adjacent to their Belconnen stadium, but has been unable to build on it.

It's sale will fund enclosing their three-on-three courts.

With the loss of the school courts, it means they lose much-needed venues for training and playing - but they hope to open up Belconnen for teams to train on for free from the start of November.

"There's no new courts on the horizon, which is the disappointing piece for us," Simpson said.

"We've had a block of land for 10 years that we've held onto under the intention of building on it, with the expectation the government was going to provide funding for that build - yet there's been no funding come forward.

"We're at the point of now looking at selling that because it's cost us just under $600,000 in rates over those 10 years."

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Simpson was confident they had the protocols in place to allow for a safe return when they were allowed to do so.

There were COVID clusters at both the Belconnen and Tuggeranong stadiums, the first of which was managed by Basketball ACT.

Simpson said they would deep clean Belconnen again before competition returns, just as they did after the cluster, and introduce additional cleaning protocols.

They will also separate entrances and exits, and ensure courts were fully vacated before players entered for the next scheduled games.

"We're pretty good from last year. We know the way we can operate ... all of those protocols will come back into play," Simpson said.

"Exactly what they are we will determine as we get closer to reopening, but at the moment our intent would be to err on the side of caution and if we can pull back from there we will."