UK padel has always had a geography problem. The sport’s growth story has been told almost entirely through London, Birmingham, and a handful of other major cities. The venues that have attracted attention – and investment – tend to cluster where the money already is.

Blackpool is not that kind of story.

On Friday 10 April, Connect Padel confirmed it is bringing a purpose-built permanent indoor padel club to the Lancashire coast town. Construction starts this month. The venue is expected to open in late September 2026. The announcement marks a meaningful step: if the description holds up, this would be the first purpose-built permanent indoor padel facility in the UK.

What has been announced

Connect Padel – the Birmingham-based operator known for its community-first club at Moseley Rugby Club – is partnering with Nathan Young to bring the Blackpool venue to life.

Young is not a name you forget. In October 2024, he set the world record for the longest padel match ever played: 40 hours of continuous play. That kind of commitment to the sport is unusual, and it signals something about what this partnership is designed to be. This is being positioned as a padel project with substance behind it, built by people who have thought seriously about what the sport is and what it should be doing.

Specific details on court numbers, pricing, and facilities are to follow as the opening approaches. What has been confirmed: construction begins in April 2026, and the doors open Autumn 2026.

Why Blackpool matters

The location is worth sitting with for a moment.

Blackpool is not where you would predict a padel announcement of this scale to land. It is not a commuter belt town with a high-income demographic and an existing racquet sports tradition. It is a coastal resort town in the North West with real deprivation challenges and a tourism economy that has had a difficult few decades.

That is precisely what makes it interesting.

UK padel’s trajectory has followed money and population density. London leads on court numbers. Birmingham and Manchester follow. The planning applications data that tracks where the sport is heading shows Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Sheffield as the next tier. Blackpool does not feature in that analysis as an obvious growth market.

And yet here is a credible operator – one with a track record of building community-focused padel infrastructure – choosing it as the location for an ambitious new venue. That choice is a statement.

For players outside the major cities, the Blackpool announcement is a concrete sign that the sport’s growth is moving beyond the places it was always expected to reach. No commute to a metropolitan area required, no premium membership at a central London facility. It is padel in a place that has never had it.

The community angle

Connect Padel’s identity is built around the idea that padel should reach people who would otherwise never find it. The Birmingham operation has 1,000 free court hours pledged to schools and charities – a founding commitment built into the club’s mission from the start, well before the British Padel Awards came calling. That pledge earned the club a finalist nomination for Community Initiative of the Year, alongside established operators who had been in the market longer.

Founder Charlie Thomson has described the mission simply: give people “a chance to pick up a racket without worrying about the cost.” For a town like Blackpool, where participation in organised sport can be constrained by cost and geography, that ethos is the right fit.

The Nathan Young partnership reinforces the same message. A world record attempt lasting 40 hours is, at its core, an act of endurance for the sport. Young’s involvement suggests the Blackpool venue will be built for the widest possible player base – including people who have never had affordable access to the sport.

What to watch for

Details on the venue’s specification – courts, layout, facilities – are expected to follow in the weeks ahead. What is already confirmed is enough to make this one of the more significant padel announcements of 2026.

UK padel passed the thousand-court mark in 2025 and is on track for well over 1,300 by the end of this year. The story of that growth has been infrastructure-led: operators building courts because the demand and economics make sense. The Blackpool announcement is something slightly different. This is an operator building in a market that was not already obvious, in partnership with someone who has demonstrated personal commitment to the sport at an extreme level, with a community mission embedded from the start.

That is a harder thing to do than opening a premium facility in a high-footfall location. Whether the model proves viable in Blackpool will say something useful about where UK padel can go next.

For context on how the sport has been spreading into cities and towns beyond the obvious hubs, the UK padel growth story lays out the structural picture.

More detail on Connect Padel Blackpool – including the venue address, court numbers, and booking arrangements – will follow ahead of the Autumn 2026 opening. If you’re in the North West and looking for padel right now, the guide to finding people to play with covers how players in emerging scenes build regular groups before dedicated venues open nearby.