A TENNIS club is celebrating after it was served up £50,000 worth of lottery funding.

Hutton Rudby Tennis Club has received the funding to upgrade its facilities and extend its building.

The village club has five all-weather courts, three of which are floodlit, but it currently lacks proper changing rooms and many other indoor facilities in the wooden pavilion it shares with the local bowls club.

The grant from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities fund will fund most of the building work, which will include creating changing rooms, toilets, a small kitchen, storage for equipment, disability access and a viewing area. The entire project is expected to cost £80,000.

Club chair Pam Dodds said they expected building work to begin in autumn.

She said: “We’re just so pleased to get this money. It’s the second time we’ve applied for this funding; the first time we were unsuccessful and then we found out a window for bids was open again in December and so we addressed the things that needed to be done and did a lot of questioning local people, getting people to fill in questionnaires and going out to the local schools.

“The tennis club is a fantastic facility for a little village like ours.

“We’re really excited about this project.”

The club offers an array of coaching and tennis groups, including veterans’ tennis, a junior tennis club attended by about 30 youngsters on Friday evening, cardio tennis fitness classes and adult coaching.

Hutton Rudby Tennis Club is among 324 local sports projects to secure a share of £17 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities fund. The grants are designed to breathe new life into community sports facilities and convert existing buildings into venues suitable for grassroots sport.

Community and voluntary organisations, councils and schools can bid for a share of £20 million to help upgrade facilities that can be unattractive, expensive to run and difficult to maintain, and to convert existing non-sporting buildings into venues that are suitable for grassroots sport.

To find out how to bid, visit; www.sportengland.org/inspiredfacilities