{"id":680102,"date":"2026-01-07T14:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/680102\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T14:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:33:10","slug":"ely-tennis-court-appeal-rejected-over-bat-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/680102\/","title":{"rendered":"Ely tennis court appeal rejected over bat concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The application was put forward by One Love Tennis Community Interest Company on behalf of the academy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The academy rents courts at King&#8217;s Ely, in the city near to Stuntney, but said it had limited access to the courts and had been told its use would soon end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/lnp\/ldrs\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a>, councillors had expressed support for the academy but reluctantly refused the application.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One Love Tennis took its appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, which <a href=\"https:\/\/acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk\/ViewCase.aspx?Caseid=3372470&amp;CoID=0\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">issued its decision on Monday, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Its report acknowledged it was not known whether bats were in the area, but that the  nearby hedgerow and reservoir made it an &#8220;ideal location&#8221; for the animal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I attribute significant weight to this harm and consider it to be decisive,&#8221; said the planning inspector.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The benefits do not outweigh the collective harm that would arise from the development as a whole.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The planning inspector accepted there were no alternative sites available, and the location at Stuntney would have otherwise been suitable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The application was put forward by One Love Tennis Community Interest Company on behalf of the academy. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-680102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115854311805388818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}