Serve for tennis idea into the void, criticism of the city

Athletes used to rush to the net full of energy. But tennis courts are no longer in such high demand. That’s why Werler TV now wants to swap the tennis net for the electricity grid and turn a court into a solar field. Also full of energy. But all attempts come to nothing: the city simply does not react. An accusation that Blau-Weiss Büderich also expresses. There, too, there are solar ideas on the tennis court – but ignorance on the part of the administration.

Werl/Büderich – Christoph Schäl confirms the TV department’s considerations of equipping one of the old squares with solar modules. Where tennis players once chased the small felt balls, boules players have been throwing their balls for a long time. The tennis department is long gone. The still young “boules and leisure sports department” has taken over the facility in the sports park, gradually built almost ten boules lanes and thus converted half of the three old places.

Werler TV: Conversion of a space for photovoltaics

But the idea of ​​using one of the old sites for solar power came up a long time ago. That was also reported to the city – because the facility is municipal property. “So we can’t build them just like that,” says Schäl. But there was no response from the administration. Schäl puts it a little more clearly: “The city does not come from the quark”. And that is always “amazing”, considering that the use of regenerative energies has not just been talked about for a short time. A lot of solar modules fit on a tennis court.

We would first need the green light from the city in order to be able to really deal with it at all

It is possible that the entire sports park with its many Werler TV systems could be supplied with electricity. “But we would first need the green light from the city in order to be able to deal with it properly at all,” says the department spokesman. The department, which now has 56 members, is happy to take on tasks and find out about financial feasibility. But the fact that this apparently falls on deaf ears in the administration annoys the athletes. Even if they like playing boules themselves – in view of the energy crisis, an administration can probably not afford to sit it out.

Annoyance also at Blau-Weiss Büderich

“We feel the same way,” confirms Lars Seifert from Blau-Weiß Büderich. The district’s tennis department had exactly the same experience. At the meeting in the pre-summer, the question arose as to whether it would make sense to equip the roof of the tennis center with solar systems. “One member has agreed to seek contact with the city,” says Seifert, managing director of the tennis department. The sports facility there also belongs to the city, so it cannot be ignored. “We are not capable of making decisions,” says Seifert.

You could also take a chewing gum and move from Büderich to Westönnen – that would have the same effects.

But what sounded simple – the question of clarifying whether and what could be possible – had developed into a nuisance. Again and again that member was put off by the administration, there was never a clear statement in all those months – until the club officer finally “had enough”, as Seifert clearly says. The managing director finds another picture for the apparently “long line” of the city: “You could also take a piece of chewing gum and move from Büderich to Westönnen – that would have the same effects.” It would have been okay if the department had rejected it would have gotten a decision. But no feedback at all? Athletes can’t understand that. “We are completely ignored,” says a frustrated manager of the 110-strong BWB department.