Charlottetown looking into building beach volleyball courts

A Charlottetowncouncillor is looking into the possibility of adding sand courts for sports like beach volleyball.

A formal request to add the courts came from a resident by email, said Coun. MitchellTweel, chair of parks and recreation for the city.

"In the next few months we will look at possible locations and what the requiredamenities are to construct one of these particular courts," he said.

The parks department is looking at variouspossible locations to create the courts, Tweel said.

"I believe there is a, you know, a real thirst for this particular sport in this city."

The cost to set up a sand court is around $25,000, Tweel said.

Hosting tournaments?

Tweel said the city needs to determine whether the courts would be built purely for recreational use or with the capacity to hosttournaments.

If there are people in the city wanting to play beach volleyball,"we owe it to them to explore all of the options to do as much research as we can," Tweel said.

"We have baseball fields, softball fields, multi-purpose fields.Soccer we spend a lot of money on soccer fields. We want to be open and all-inclusive when it comes to parks and recreation," he said.

Work to be done

There are still a number of steps that need to be taken before construction of sand courts could begin.

The parks department will discuss the idea and if staff are confident in the project it would besubmittedto the finance committee, then council would vote on the issue, Tweel said.

Tweel said he would hope to start with two courts and may consider four if they are used frequently.

Victoria Park is not off the table as a potential location for the courts, but Tweel said there is already a "big demand"on the park.

"I would certainly be in favour of looking at other locations throughout the city."

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