If you’ve ever wondered why court hire costs £20 a head when you can rent a five-a-side pitch for the same money, the answer starts with what it took to build the thing you’re standing in.

A padel court is not a cheap piece of infrastructure. The glass panels, the steel frame, the certified artificial turf, the lighting system, the drainage, the foundations – it adds up quickly, and it doesn’t add up equally depending on where you put it and what you put in it. The gap between a budget outdoor court and a premium indoor one spans tens of thousands of pounds, and that gap shows in the monthly booking bill.

Here is what the economics look like, and why they matter to anyone who plays the sport.

What a basic outdoor court costs

A single outdoor padel court costs £45,000–£65,000 fully installed, with groundworks the most variable component depending on site conditions.

For a single outdoor padel court, fully installed on a prepared site, expect to pay £45,000 to £65,000. That figure covers the glass and mesh frame, artificial turf with sand infill, floodlights, and a concrete base – the components you’d call essential.

The spread within that range is mostly explained by site conditions. Groundworks are the most unpredictable line item in any padel build. Level, well-drained ground with good access costs less to prepare than a sloping car park with existing drainage to divert. The LTA’s 2025 guidance gives an indicative total of around £71,000 for a single court including lighting, ring beam, base, ducting, and drainage – a realistic figure once all the site preparation is included.

Outdoor courts are cheaper to build and cheaper to run. They’re also exposed to the UK’s weather. Anyone booking a court in November already knows this. The trade-off is roughly £20,000–£25,000 saved on construction in exchange for four months of the year where play is uncomfortable.

What indoor or covered courts cost

Covered courts cost £65,000–£80,000; purpose-built indoor courts run £70,000–£100,000+. The difference is structure, ventilation, and electrical supply.

Move indoors – or under a canopy structure – and the numbers climb sharply.

A covered single court, adding a steel canopy over an outdoor-spec structure, typically costs £65,000–£80,000. A purpose-built indoor court within a dedicated building runs higher: £70,000–£100,000 per court by the time you account for the building structure, ventilation, electrical supply, and compliant emergency exits.

For multi-court venues, there are economies of scale. The LTA’s indicative figures show the cost per court falling as you add more: around £71,000 for one court, £74,000 per court for two (£148,000 total), and £67,000 per court for four (£268,000 total). Groundworks and power supply are largely fixed costs – they don’t double when you add a second court.

A five-court indoor facility – the kind that becomes a real local hub with a reception, changing rooms, and a café – will typically cost £350,000–£500,000 in total before fitting out the social space. That’s the investment sitting behind a venue that charges £22 per hour and runs from 7am to 10pm seven days a week.

Where the money goes

Breaking down a typical outdoor court build:

  • Groundworks and foundations: £15,000–£40,000 (the single most variable item)
  • Court structure (glass, mesh, steel frame): £8,000–£20,000
  • Synthetic turf and shockpad: £6,000–£15,000
  • LED floodlights: £3,000–£15,000
  • Fencing, gates, and access: £2,000–£8,000
  • Drainage and ancillary works: £5,000–£20,000

The court structure itself – the thing you see when you look at a padel venue – is often not the most expensive part. What sits underneath it is.

Glass specification matters significantly. Standard courts use 10mm tempered glass with a visible steel frame. Panoramic courts use 12mm glass with neoprene-mounted panels and minimal framing. Full panoramic courts – the kind seen at Premier Padel events – have glass corners and barely any visible steel. Each step up costs more to manufacture and install. How those choices affect the game you play is covered in detail in our guide to how UK padel courts are built.

Planning permission

Almost every padel court in the UK requires formal planning permission.

Outdoor courts are classified as Class F2(c) sport and recreation use. The main planning risks are noise – generated by play, by arriving and leaving players, by the characteristic sound of a padel ball striking glass – and lighting. Residential neighbours near floodlit outdoor courts are the most common source of objections, and councils weigh that against the public benefit of new sports facilities.

Indoor courts can operate under Class E(d), which covers commercial leisure use, and conversions of existing commercial buildings often avoid a formal change of use. But any structural changes to the building still need building regulations approval. The shortcut is real, but it’s narrower than it looks.

The planning process adds time and uncertainty. A venue that has consent to build can move quickly; a venue still in pre-application discussion may be months away from breaking ground. That timeline cost is one reason operators pay more for sites with existing planning consent or Class E(d) use.

Running costs after the build

The capital cost is not the end of the financial story.

Artificial turf needs maintenance: regular brushing and sand top-ups (£500–£1,000 per year), periodic deep cleaning, and eventual resurfacing. The surface typically lasts eight to twelve years with proper maintenance, and resurfacing a single court costs £4,000–£9,000 depending on specification. That’s a cost arriving on a predictable ten-year schedule that every operator should be accounting for.

Glass panels get scratched, crack under impact, and occasionally need replacing. LED lighting systems have long service lives but do eventually require bulb and driver replacement. Frame coatings chip and need touching up – galvanised steel frames hold up far better than powder-coated ones in the UK climate, which is one reason the quality gap between budget and premium courts compounds over time.

A realistic maintenance budget for an outdoor court is £2,000–£4,000 per year in routine costs, rising towards a resurfacing year.

Why courts cluster in affluent postcodes

The LTA’s own research has found that padel courts are disproportionately concentrated in wealthy areas of the UK, and the economics make it clear why.

Court hire at £18–£25 per player per hour sounds accessible until you do the maths from the operator’s side. A two-court outdoor venue that cost £120,000 to build generates roughly £160–£200 per hour at full occupancy. To cover build costs, operational expenses, staff, insurance, and site rent in ten years, that venue needs to run at sustainable occupancy – consistently, year-round, in a country where outdoor padel is weather-dependent.

That occupancy is easier to achieve in a postcode where leisure spending is high and players can absorb the cost without it being a decision. It’s harder in areas where £20 per session is a meaningful amount. The economics of padel construction have delivered courts to the places most likely to fill them, which has, in practice, meant affluent suburbs and town centres.

The LTA’s Quick Access Loan scheme pushes against this, offering reduced interest rates for venues in the 40% most deprived areas – a 5% rate cut to 2.5% for eligible venues. Since 2019, the scheme has helped build over 100 courts and committed close to £11 million in investment. It’s a meaningful lever. It doesn’t yet offset the underlying economics.

What it means for your hire price

A well-run padel venue has manageable operating costs relative to a gym or a golf club. The capital cost of getting there, though, is substantial enough that hire prices can’t drop far without the numbers stopping working.

£18–25 per player per hour is where most of the UK market sits in 2026. At four players on a court for 90 minutes, that’s £108–£150 per session, running from 7am to 10pm. On a busy court in a well-populated venue, the revenue model works. On a lightly used outdoor court in a less affluent catchment, it’s tighter.

The courts that feel expensive tend to be expensive for reasons: a better surface, a covered or indoor structure, a building that cost £800,000 to convert, or a location where commercial rent is substantial. Understanding what went into the construction goes some way to explaining what comes out in the price.

For context on the actual install process – contractors, timelines, site requirements – our guide to padel court installation in the UK walks through what happens once a project moves from planning to delivery. Planning consent itself is also where many projects stall: our coverage of UK padel planning applications tracks how councils are responding to the surge in proposals.