Portsmouth's new 3x3 basketball courts are open

Portsmouth has a new place to shoot hoops, and it's not your usual grey concrete slab. The revamped basketball courts at Alexandra Park in Hilsea held their launch event on 11 August, with players from across the city turning up to test out the new surface. Councillor Russell Simpson called the opening a great success, framing it as the latest addition to a growing run of free sports facilities around Hilsea, which already includes two full-size goals in the park.

What you're actually getting is a vibrant, state-of-the-art 3x3 court, built to be used by people of all ages. The renovation wasn't a quick lick of paint: it took in a new cage, new hoops and a fresh surface painted in bright colours, with Basketball England coming on as sponsor. The project has been in the works since 2023, pulled together by a group of parties keen to regenerate community spaces across Portsmouth and cut down on antisocial behaviour in Hilsea. Simpson, who secured £60,000 from the council to fund the work, pointed out that Hilsea has long been crying out for safe community spaces, being the only ward without a community centre of its own.

It's not just the court that's new. The walls next to it have been turned into bright murals, sponsored by Crown Paint and Mountjoy Portsmouth, with artists Seekers Create, Neil Foley, Alice Christina Rose and Spike Zephaniah Stephenson behind the work. And that's not the final version: more art is due to be added over the course of the year, so the place will keep changing the more you go back.

Behind the scenes, it was a proper local effort. The project was managed by council officer Ian Viner, Cllr Simpson and Craig Hughes, who runs Chainnet 3x3 and heads up the Portsmouth Force basketball team, so it's come from people who actually know the game rather than being handed down from a distant office. That's worth knowing if you're the sort who cares about how a court is actually put together.

If you're building a bit of a basketball tour of the city, there's an obvious next stop. The Mountbatten leisure centre, right in the middle of town, keeps basketball courts alongside its sports hall, five-a-side pitches, badminton and squash courts, plus an outdoor athletics track and velodrome. It's a different kind of session altogether — an indoor hall rather than an outdoor 3x3 cage — but it rounds off a decent pair of options for anyone who wants to get a game in without travelling far.

So, for a free outdoor session, Hilsea's new 3x3 court is the place to start, and if you'd rather be indoors, Mountbatten is the other half of the equation. Between the two, Portsmouth has a couple of solid options for a game, whether you're playing for a proper match or just messing about at the weekend.