THRIVING Woodbridge Tennis club is heading for a collision course with town councillors as £3,500 rent remains unpaid for its sports pavilion.The club is seriously concerned that its standing with the Lawn Tennis Association could be compromised by two clashes with the town council and in the long-term the club could have difficulty in getting grants.

THRIVING Woodbridge Tennis club is heading for a collision course with town councillors as £3,500 rent remains unpaid for its sports pavilion.

The club is seriously concerned that its standing with the Lawn Tennis Association could be compromised by two clashes with the town council and in the long-term the club could have difficulty in getting grants.

The club's acting chairman Mike Hudson said the LTA was ''thunderstruck'' when the town council decided not to allow the club to be among a handful in the country to trial a prestigious new £35,000 Kids Zone for children and disabled tennis players at Kingston playing fields.

The club had planning permission but the council rejected the scheme, saying it ran contrary to the wishes of Frederic Smith who bequeathed the land for public use.

Now the tennis club is fighting the imposition of a £3,500 rent on the council-owned pavilion it uses with the Woodbridge Town Youths Football Club. The footballers have warned that they will move away because they can not afford their 15 per cent share of the new rent.

The tennis club will discuss the rent issue at its annual general meeting on March 7. Members would have to agree to a large rise in fees to pay for the rent – but Mr Hudson said some players wanted to give up the pavilion in protest at the rent.

The town council set the rent last year after a seven-year rent-free period. A district valuer has been asked to decide what is a fair rent and Mr Hudson said the club's independent assessor had suggested £1,000 to £1,400.

Mr Hudson said: ''The town council did not allow us to build a pavilion in the first place, then they built a pavilion that was too big, did not allow us the Kids Zone and then put up this rent.

''Our fees would have to go up so dramatically that people would leave the club and young people would not come in. The pavilion management committee should let out the pavilion more often to generate income. As far as we are aware there were only two occasions that it was let out and this was for functions put on by town council members themselves.''

He added that the tennis players and footballers were the only people using the pavilion and therefore it was in the council's best interests to resolve the dispute amicably and bring in a cheaper rent.