Can the destruction of a 130 year old elm avenue be justified?
The Fitzroy Tennis club wants to cut down an elm avenue in Edinburgh Gardens and annex the land for two new courts. They have funding for the courts and upgrade to the Tennis pavilion as part of a larger project to upgrade facilities at the Brunswick Street Oval. Yarra Council has supported the proposal. Improving the facilities at the six court club is not controversial but expanding the grounds beyond their 130 year old lease of 3 roods and 37 perches (0.4ha) will cause irreparable damage to an elm avenue, close a path and diminish Edinburgh Gardens.
To justify the expansion of courts, Council was told that Tennis Australia advised that the club is the busiest club in the State. Does that stack up?
Open booking data makes it possible to compare booking at Fitzroy Tennis Club with Mayors Park Tennis Centre.
Mayors Park is a 20 minute walk from Fitzroy Tennis Club. Both clubs have 6 courts. Mayors Park was specifically mentioned in the amendment to the motion that asked officers to explore other options. Mayors Park expanded from 4 to 6 courts in 2007. The two new courts (Courts 1 and 2) were built as multipurpose courts with a larger footprint and markings that can be used for Netball, Pickleball or Tennis. Cityside sports runs a popular ‘Mixed and Ladies’ netball program four evenings a week from 6:00pm to 10:30pm on these two courts.
Adding new tennis courts to Mayors Park would be challenging to the landscape and environment qualities of the 1865 park. But unlike Edinburgh Gardens, there is no heritage overlay and fewer significant trees which require a permit to remove. Much of the Mayors Park is taken by the leisure centre which is surrounded by unused land protected by a chain-wire fence to prevent kids sneaking into the pool. There is also a large an under used carpark in the south of Mayors Park. Destroying an elm avenue in Edinburgh Gardens will be a much harder argument for Council than the damage to Mayors Park caused by additional courts.
Daily booking data for the the 13 months up to Feb 1 2025 was collected for both courts.
The data includes the booking reservations for each court, opening and closing times. The name of the booking is often just ‘Booking’, presumably a private reservation. Often it describes the activity. There is no address data for the person making the booking in the reservation data so no catchment assessment can be made from this data without combining it with the registered user’s address.
The data shows that the courts at Mayors Park were utilized more than the courts at Fitzroy Tennis Club by all measures. Fitzroy Tennis Club courts were closed to bookings 30 minutes earlier each evening and 90 minutes on the weekend.
The last session of the day was popular in Mayors Park on weekdays with almost 5 courts booked on average throughout the year, 4 on Tuesday and less on other days. Even on weekends more than 1 court was booked on average at 10pm.
Mayors Park was full (had all six courts booked) more often than Fitzroy. Neither club was fully booked for more than 30% of the available time, suggesting that the proposed new overflow courts would be utilized less than 30% of opening times, suggesting both the new courts would be empty for 20 hours per day.
There was less coaching at Mayors Park but more of all the other booking types.
When Fitzroy was fully booked, coaching occupied 2 or more courts for 38% of the time compared to 27% of the time for Mayors Park.
Moving some of the coaching reservations to less busy times would reduce congestion. Moving morning coaching to the new indoor sports centre in Fitzroy Gasworks may also be possible since the center, which mainly caters for team sports, is not likely to be busy at that time. Extending the time for coaching and reducing the number of courts booked would ease congestion. These changes depend on demand and availability of coaches and their clients.
Some of the higher utilization of Mayors Park can be attributed to the multi-use nature of two of the courts and the successful netball program.
Bookings Summary
| Club | Total 30 min Sessions (in data) | Closed Bookings | Total Available Bookings (not booked) | Total 20m Bookings (exc. Closed) | Total Booking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mayors Park Tennis Centre | 71796 | 0 | 71796 | 47073 | 65.56% |
| Fitzroy Tennis Club | 69480 | 1309 | 68171 | 40223 | 57.89% |
Bookings by Court: Mayors Park Tennis Centre.
No courts were significantly more or less popular.
| Court | Bookings | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7781 | 10.84% |
| 2 | 7261 | 10.11% |
| 3 | 8406 | 11.71% |
| 4 | 7746 | 10.79% |
| 5 | 7518 | 10.47% |
| 6 | 8361 | 11.65% |
Bookings by Court: Fitzroy Tennis Club.
Courts 4 and 5 were more popular than 2 and 3.
| Court | Bookings | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6881 | 9.90% |
| 2 | 5831 | 8.39% |
| 3 | 6018 | 8.66% |
| 4 | 7097 | 10.21% |
| 5 | 6909 | 9.94% |
| 6 | 7487 | 10.78% |
| Club | Total Available Bookings | Actual Bookings | Court 1 | Court 2 | Court 3 | Court 4 | Court 5 | Court 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mayors Park Tennis Centre | 39975 | 15252 | 2346 | 2363 | 2805 | 2598 | 2453 | 2687 |
| Fitzroy Tennis Club | 41281 | 13333 | 2474 | 2041 | 2115 | 2407 | 2031 | 2265 |
Data Analysis
Over the period from Jan 1 2024 to Feb 28 2025 there were more bookings in Mayors Park than in Edinburgh Gardens. Most bookings are for 30 minutes or a multiple of 30 minutes. To compare, it is necessary to break longer bookings into 30 minute blocks and to extend the occasional short bookings to 30 minutes. Then count the longer bookings as if they are separate 30 minute bookings.
A booking is counted regardless of whether there was any activity on the court. Conversely any games or activity without a booking are not recorded in the data.
The bookings data do not usually show whether there were two or four players on the booked court or how many participated in a coaching booking. The netball games have 14 players on court plus umpire and up to six substitutes, they play even when the tennis courts are abandoned for rain. A tennis-only court will have 2 to 4 players per game, potentially more during coaching sessions.
Data was available for all 30 minute sessions for all courts throughout the year except for 7 court-sessions in Mayors Park and 6 court-sessions in Fitzroy. Of these, two of the missing court-sessions occurred when the other 5 courts were occupied in each club. These have been assumed to be not-booked and are not significant.
The first thing that stands out is there were 31 thirty-minute sessions per day available to be booked at Mayors Park, while Fitzroy only had 30 due to the earlier close of bookings. The LatestEndTime for Fitzroy was set 30 minutes earlier to 10pm during the period.
The booking system has changed slightly since February 28 after the data was collected. Fitzroy is now reporting a LatestEndTime of 11:45pm.
Fitzroy courts recorded ‘Closed’ bookings on weekend nights effectively closing an hour earlier. The ‘Closed’ bookings consumed 1.9% of the total available sessions at Fitzroy. The closed bookings, which occurred every weekend throughout the 13 months, have now been removed from the system, including the historical records. This change occurred at the same time the LatestEndTime was extended.
Courts were booked for Maintenance for 0.22% of sessions in Mayors Park and 0.32% of sessions in Fitzroy.
If Fitzroy is the busiest club in the state, then we would expect fewer idle courts than Mayors Park, especially with the more restricted hours, but the data shows the opposite hypothesis – Mayors Park is busier.
34.44% of available court sessions were never booked in Mayors Park compared to 40.22% of Fitzroy court sessions remaining idle. Even though Mayors park had more sessions overall.
Booking Categories
Some booking categories are included in the data from the server:
- 1000 Private Bookings,
- 2000 Coaching
- 3000 Competitions and Social Events
- 7000 Maintenance
Further categories can be inferred from the booking name.
There is a different mix of booking types, reflecting the different cultures but also what the bookings happen to be called. Many of the bookings at Fitzroy are for Juniors but categorized here as competition or social, whereas Mayors Park had lots of bookings specifically for schools (some not in Yarra). Juniors could be defined as a separate category or separately for social and competition.
| Category | Mayors Park Tennis Centre | Fitzroy Tennis Club |
|---|---|---|
| Available | 34.44% | 40.22% |
| Closed | 0.00% | 1.88% |
| Private | 35.61% | 32.17% |
| Coaching | 9.97% | 13.75% |
| Social | 6.87% | 3.84% |
| Competition | 9.82% | 7.71% |
| Pickleball | 2.73% | 0.00% |
| Schools | 0.38% | 0.00% |
| Maintenance | 0.18% | 0.32% |
| Other | 0.01% | 0.12% |
The main utilization was for private bookings, followed by coaching, then competition, then social. Utilization was higher in Mayors Park overall and for all categories except Coaching which was 38% higher in Fitzroy.
Congestion / Busy Hour
A main drivers for creating new courts would be if the existing courts cannot supply demand. If all six courts are booked or reserved, then it is not possible to book a court at that time. This is the busy hour (of half hour) and it has been studied by traffic engineers for 100 years. If you can move the time you play or commute, then you can utilize the resource when it is not busy. If your time to play is constrained by school or work for you or your team mates, then those busy times become the main constraint to whether you can play tennis or are forced to do something else. Congestion causes frustration with the infrastructure or service level.
Throughout the study period, all six courts were fully occupied for 29.35% of available sessions in Mayors Park and 27.68% in Fitzroy.
| Courts Occupied | Mayors Park Sessions | Mayors Park Percentage | Fitzroy Sessions | Fitzroy Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 or more courts | 11316 | 94.57% | 10024 | 86.56% |
| 2 or more courts | 10251 | 85.67% | 8699 | 75.12% |
| 3 or more courts | 8874 | 74.16% | 7344 | 63.42% |
| 4 or more courts | 7396 | 61.81% | 6089 | 52.58% |
| 5 or more courts | 5724 | 47.84% | 4851 | 41.89% |
| 6 or more courts | 3512 | 29.35% | 3205 (exl. Closed) | 27.68% |
| Total Congested Sessions | 3512 | 3425 (inc. Closed) |
Mayors Park, with more sessions overall, would be expected to be less congested but is more congested. 6% of the ‘congestion’ at Fitzroy occurred when all the courts were ‘Closed’.
To examine the causes of congestion, count the booking categories again, but this time only for congested sessions where all six courts are occupied.
| Booking Category | Mayors Park bookings in busy hour | Mayors Park Percentage | Fitzroy bookings in busy hour | Fitzroy Tennis Club Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Available | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% |
| Closed | 0 | 0.00% | 1309 | 6.37% |
| Private | 8747 | 41.51% | 9057 | 44.07% |
| Coaching | 3169 | 15.04% | 4349 | 21.16% |
| Social | 3192 | 15.15% | 1590 | 7.74% |
| Competition | 4790 | 22.73% | 4147 | 20.18% |
| Pickleball | 943 | 4.48% | 0 | 0.00% |
| Schools | 181 | 0.86% | 0 | 0.00% |
| Maintenance | 47 | 0.22% | 56 | 0.27% |
| Other | 3 | 0.01% | 42 | 0.20% |
| Total Bookings during congestion | 21072 | 100% | 20550 | 100% |
| Congested Sessions (total/6) | 3512 | 3425 (inc. Closed) |
Private bookings, competitions, coaching and social bookings are driving congestion at both clubs. Often a competition will reserve all six courts.
6 separate private bookings occupied all courts 532 times in Mayors Park and 721 times in Fitzroy, contributing to 15% and 21% of the congested sessions respectively.
Coaching typically had recurring bookings of 3 or 4 courts. Private bookings filled in the gaps.
| Day | Mayors Park Congested Sessions | Fitzroy Tennis Club Congested Sessions |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday | 614 | 766 |
| Sunday | 585 | 671 |
| Monday | 456 | 467 |
| Thursday | 406 | 406 |
| Friday | 577 | 388 |
| Tuesday | 478 | 381 |
| Wednesday | 396 | 346 |
| Total | 3512 | 3425 |
There were no coaching sessions on weekends at either club. Weekend Congestion was dominated by competitions.
Mayors Park
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 4 or more courts: 251
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 3 or more courts: 692
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 2 or more courts: 940 (27% of congested sessions)
Fitzroy Tennis Club
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 4 or more courts: 425
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 3 or more courts: 1161
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 2 or more courts: 1316 (38% of congested sessions)
Fitzroy has more coaching overall, and coaching was more likely to contribute to congestion at popular times.
Heat Maps
The heatmaps show the times and days of the week where congestion was likely to occur most often throughout the year, by averaging the number of courts booked at each time. Numbers closer to 6 are dark blue. The darker cells show the club was fully booked at that time throughout the year, such as Sundays at 9:30am in Mayors Park, or the 4 Closed sessions on weekend nights in Fitzroy, which can be discounted.
Mayors Park has 8 sessions per week averaging 5.7 courts or more annually, compared to Fitzroy’s 1 session per week. This may be due to more seasonality in the Fitzroy schedule (see table below).
Mayors Park has 4 idle sessions per week averaging one court or less annually, compared to Fitzroy’s 12 sessions per week.
The heat maps for Mayors Park shows that the last session of the day on weekdays are well utilized. The fall off on Friday evening shows the contribution from Netball to the weekday evening utilization, but indicates that if Fitzroy had stayed open at that time on weeknights, it would not be empty. On late weekend nights, when Fitzroy was closed, Mayors park utilization was 1.9 on Saturday and 2.4 on Sunday for the first half hour, dropping to very low after 10pm, with less than one court on average annually. This indicates that had Fitzroy opened later on weekends, there would have been only low utilization.
Average Occupancy Counts
The numbers in the heatmaps are rounded to 1 decimal point so counts may differ from the table below.
| Occupancy Level | Mayors Park Weekly Sessions | Fitzroy Weekly Sessions (exc. 4 Closed sessions) |
|---|---|---|
| 6.0 | 0 | 0 |
| 5.9 or greater | 3 | 0 |
| 5.8 or greater | 6 | 0 |
| 5.7 or greater | 8 | 1 |
| 5.6 or greater | 15 | 7 |
| 5.5 or greater | 19 | 10 |
| 5.4 or greater | 30 | 13 |
| 5.3 or greater | 39 | 20 |
| 5.2 or greater | 48 | 29 |
| 5.1 or greater | 53 | 32 |
| 5.0 or greater | 63 | 43 |
| 2.0 or lower | 23 | 50 |
| 1.0 or lower | 4 | 12 |
The 3068 Group 