If you’ve noticed a padel court appearing near a retail park, at your local gym, or tucked behind a cricket club, you’re not imagining a trend. New data from land and planning intelligence platform Searchland shows that planning applications for padel courts in the UK reached 348 in 2024 – a 113% increase on the 163 submitted in 2023.
The sport has gone from a curiosity to a serious planning priority in under five years. In 2021, just 53 applications were submitted nationally. That figure climbed to 82 in 2022, nearly doubled again to 163 in 2023, and then surged to 348 last year. Searchland projects the 2025 total will hit 544 – a further 56% rise – with 295 already submitted.
From 89,000 players to 400,000
Behind the applications surge is a straightforward driver: demand. The Lawn Tennis Association estimates that by the end of 2024, more than 400,000 people in Britain were playing padel regularly – up from just 89,000 in 2021. January 2026 saw 13 million Google searches for padel (up 47% year-on-year) and 155,000 searches specifically for padel courts, up 190%.
That kind of search demand translates directly into investor interest. Courts generate revenue quickly relative to their footprint, they work in existing sports venues, warehouses, and car parks, and they don’t require the land area of a tennis court. For developers and sports operators looking at where to put money in leisure infrastructure, padel has become an obvious candidate.
Hugh Gibbs, co-founder of Searchland, put it plainly: “Padel’s extraordinary rise in popularity isn’t just a trend. It’s a powerful signal to landowners, developers, and local authorities.”
Nearly 17,000 sites identified
Searchland’s research goes beyond counting applications. The company has identified nearly 17,000 locations across the UK that could support padel development, across three categories.
The largest group – around 16,851 sites – consists of existing sports venues: golf courses, racquet clubs, football facilities, leisure centres. These are the conversion plays, where a redundant court or unused outdoor space becomes a padel facility. The next group is commercial property: around 15,742 underutilised buildings with the footprint and ceiling height required for indoor courts. Warehouses, old retail units, and fitness spaces all feature here.
A smaller but notable third category covers short-term opportunities – 674 sites on large-scale developments where temporary planning permissions (typically three to five years) are being used to activate land that would otherwise sit idle.
Geographically, London leads with over 1,086 eligible sports venues and 929 commercial properties. Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield all appear in the data as significant opportunities outside the capital.
The noise problem is not going away
The surge in applications tells one story. The refusal and objection rate is telling another.
Noise has become the defining friction point in UK padel planning. The ball-on-glass impact from a padel court – particularly at pace – generates a sharp, percussive sound that carries further than a tennis ball on strings. Residents near proposed courts have described it as sounding “like a rifle shot”, and some local authorities are now requiring noise impact assessments (NIAs) as standard for any padel application near residential areas.
High-profile refusals have started shaping the national conversation. Plans for three outdoor courts at St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club in Surrey – one of England’s most exclusive private clubs – were shelved after 42 objections, primarily on noise grounds. The club eventually built the courts indoors, at an additional cost of around £250,000.
West Hants Tennis Club’s bid to introduce padel courts was refused by the planning committee on the basis of “unacceptable noise impacts”, with a local resident warning of noise “like gunfire” reaching their home.
These cases are not isolated. The pattern – popular demand, investor appetite, and a meaningful minority of very resistant neighbours – is now well established. Planning By Design, a consultancy specialising in padel applications, recommends early community engagement, professional acoustic assessments, and careful site selection as the three keys to avoiding the same outcome.
What it means for local players
For most players, the planning picture is mixed but broadly positive. The application surge means more courts are in the pipeline across more parts of the country. The geographic data suggests that areas outside London – which has dominated the early court rollout – will see significant development over the next two to three years.
The complications arise where outdoor courts are proposed near residential neighbourhoods. In those cases, longer timelines, acoustic engineering requirements, and the occasional planning battle mean some projects take longer to reach court than expected.
Indoor conversions tend to be more straightforward: the noise issue is contained by the building itself, and councils are generally supportive of brownfield and commercial site regeneration. The warehouse-to-padel-club pipeline is steadily becoming one of the more practical routes to getting new facilities built.
If you’re trying to find a court near you right now, the how to start playing padel guide covers the best ways to search by location and book sessions. And if you want context on where UK padel sits in the global boom-and-bust cycle – Sweden’s rapid expansion followed by mass club failures is the instructive cautionary tale – the bubble question is worth reading.
The headline number – 113% growth in planning applications – is striking. The more important figure might be the one we see in three years: how many of those applications made it to a working court.