Chester Croquet Club has reason to be grateful to former Lord Mayor of Chester, Richard Short, who died on 22 March 2022 aged 88. As local Councillor for Westminster Park and portfolio holder for culture and recreation in the newly formed Cheshire West and Chester Council in 2009, he supported and gained approval for the clubhouse now occupied by the croquet and bowls clubs in Westminster Park. The new clubhouse was opened in 2011 and replaced a dilapidated ‘temporary’ portacabin which had been installed fifteen years earlier after the original wooden clubhouse next to the bowling greens was destroyed by arson in 1996.