Is padel eating tennis?

Every few weeks another tennis club announces it's "making room for padel". So we went looking for the real number.

We read every padel planning application on record in Padel Genie, 2,123 of them, and pulled out each one that replaces tennis courts with padel.

The answer: at least 296.

The numbers

208 of those 296 applications have been approved, adding at least 392 padel courts. That's about 1 in 7 padel schemes on record.

2025 was the peak so far:

• 2024: 63 applications
• 2025: 94 applications
• 2026 so far: 59, on course for about 70

The pipeline

28 conversions lodged in the last year are still waiting on a decision. Another 10 schemes at tennis venues are building padel on new ground alongside the existing courts.

Conversions are now a smaller share of the padel market than they were, about 1 in 12 applications in the last year. Tennis clubs haven't stopped converting, but after a record 2025 the pace has eased, and warehouse units and new-build schemes now make up far more of the pipeline.

So is padel eating tennis?

Not really. It's eating tennis's quietest courts.

Most of these schemes swap one or two courts, not a whole club. A typical application turns one tennis court into one or two padel courts, or two tennis courts into three. For many clubs it's how the rest of the club gets paid for: padel courts book out at times when tennis courts sit empty.

Where it does get contested is public courts. Councils have refused schemes that would lose public tennis provision, and one of those later succeeded by keeping part of the original use.

Who is converting

It isn't mostly tennis clubs.

• Private tennis clubs: 81 applications
• Operators, hotels and gyms: 77 (David Lloyd accounts for about 40)
• Cricket, rugby, golf and village sports clubs, plus private homes: 86
• Council parks and public courts: 44

The hotspots are the commuter belt: Elmbridge, the South Downs and Buckinghamshire lead the list.

They get approved more often

In the last 12 months, 92% of decided tennis court conversions were approved. For other padel schemes the figure was 85%. Every new-build route sat between 82% and 84%: building conversions 84%, outdoor courts on new ground 83%, and new indoor halls and domes 82%.

Over the whole record the gap is smaller, 90% against 86%, but it points the same way. Decision times are about the same either way, typically around three months.

It makes sense. A tennis court is already in sports use, usually fenced, often floodlit, and close to the people who will play on it.

Why conversions get refused

22 conversions have been refused. Judging by each site and what happened next, the reasons break down roughly like this:

• Noise from courts close to housing: 8
• Landscape, mostly in national parks: 5
• Green belt: 4
• Floodlights: 2
• Loss of public tennis courts: 2
• Heritage: 1

About a third of those refusals were later turned around:

• Oxshott was approved with a 4 metre acoustic fence.
• Southend was approved with a canopy over the courts.
• Regents Park was approved once the lighting was dropped.
• Broxbourne, in the green belt, was approved once the canopy was dropped.

Finding tennis courts that could take padel

Padel Genie maps land already in sports use, tennis courts included, alongside every padel planning application in the UK. You can see which sites near you have already applied for padel, which were refused and why, and which courts nobody has approached yet.

If you're planning a conversion

1. Plan for noise from day one. Distance to the nearest homes is the biggest single risk. Acoustic fencing and canopies have both won consent where a first application failed.
2. Think twice about lights and canopies in the green belt or a residential street. Several refusals were about the lighting or the structure, not the padel.
3. Public courts are harder. Expect questions about the loss of public tennis, and keep some of the original use if you can.
4. Look at the precedents near you. A refusal or approval two miles away tells you more than any general rule.

How we counted

We searched every non-paperwork padel application in Padel Genie (discharges, variations and minor amendments removed, duplicates merged) for any mention of tennis, then read every match. We only counted applications that clearly replace, convert or resurface tennis courts.

Treat 296 as a floor. Many descriptions say "construction of padel courts" at a tennis club without saying what land they replace, and no national planning dataset captures every application.