COVID-19 public school cleaning protocols add further strain to Canberra's indoor court shortage

The ACT government's solution to the growing demand for indoor courts remains building facilities at new schools. The union of all major sports, COMPS ACT, has been asking the government to create a long-term plan for months around what facilities will be built, where they'll be built and when.

Now school COVID cleaning protocols are amplifying the shortage further by reducing court time availability and taking others offline, in addition to Gold Creek School becoming a COVID testing site.

ACT Basketball acting chief executive Nicole Bowles said it was adding pressure to an already tight battle for court time to meet demands.

"We've got representative programs that were really struggling to find courts, I know of multiple clubs who have been affected in terms of their training venues," she said.

"We grew by over 100 teams last year within our winter competition. We're predicting another growth year, which means we need to seriously look at actually capping numbers, putting people on waiting lists and clubs turning them away just because they don't have the training facilities to be able to meet the demand."

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An ACT government spokesperson said the government had allocated $500,000 to improve facilities in schools in recent years.

They confirmed, however, they were aware of the cleaning protocols at schools reducing court availability.

"We are working to resume normal hiring arrangements as soon as possible," the spokesperson said.

"Individual schools are in charge of those hiring decisions which are made considering a number of factors, including the availability of cleaning staff to clean spaces after use. During school term the priority for cleaning staff is the education of students, and cleaning classrooms and other spaces required for that purpose."

Badminton ACT president Olaf Schuermann echoed the same issues basketball was facing. He said reduced court availability at schools left sport administrators scrambling to find facilities.

His individual badminton club did not operate during December or January at their venue, Amaroo School, as its courts were closed. He said although it comes back online next month, a reduced number of slots were available.

"We're going to lose members, unfortunately, and I think all the other sports are saying the same thing. All our sports are bursting," he said.

"I'm going through my members ... and I probably will have to cut back by about three or 400 members, and that's just my club. Other clubs are in the same position."

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