President of the Neville Public School P&C Kate Burrell said that if small communities like Neville don’t have good facilities and activities for small children, their village will simply die.

“Having the courts in a central location will be an asset to our little town and attract more families to our school,” she said.

The alternative location submitted by opponents, the Neville showground, is simply inappropriate, Mrs Burrell said.

“It will take the kids twenty minutes to walk to and from the school and when you have a one hour sports program, that’s forty minutes of their allotted time for sport gone,” she said.

“Building them out there would be an absolute waste of time and money. They would not be used.”

Mrs Burrell believes that the impact on the heritage buildings will be minimal compared to other nearby structures.

“There’s a massive big green fire shed right in the middle of all this and there’s been no mention of the impact that that has on the streetscape,” she said.

For the community though, approval to build the courts is only the first step in the process.

“We’ve had to get the development application in and approved so that we can now chase funding through government grants to have the courts built,” Mrs Burrell said.

“It helps if they’re shovel ready.”