Enfield approves first council-owned padel courts at Southbury Leisure Centre

Enfield Council has approved three floodlit padel courts with a canopy at Southbury Leisure Centre, giving the borough its first council-owned padel venue. The courts will be built at the rear of the site in the coming months, with the council saying padel is coming to an Enfield Council-owned venue for the first time.

The planning application, reference 26/02244/RE4, covers 3 covered padel courts at the rear of Southbury Leisure Centre, 192 Southbury Road, Enfield, EN1 1YP, plus 12 associated floodlights. Planning records show the application was validated on 9 June 2026, and the project also appears on the council’s governance site under the issue title KD 6092 - Southbury Padel Centre.

That matters because Enfield is not opening into a quiet niche. Padel has been rising fast across Great Britain, and the Lawn Tennis Association said the country reached 1,000 padel courts on 17 July 2025. In north London, the pressure is already visible elsewhere: the BBC reported that four indoor tennis courts at Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre are set to be replaced by nine padel courts, a sign that the sport is not just adding space but competing for it.

Southbury Leisure Centre gives Enfield a different test. This is a council-owned site, not a private club, so the borough is effectively using public land to create its first official entry point into the sport. The canopy and floodlights suggest year-round use rather than a fair-weather court or a novelty install, which should matter if the goal is more than simply serving players who already know padel exists.

The bigger question is whether Enfield is building for new participants or catching up with demand that already outpaced supply. The answer will depend on how the courts are programmed and priced once they open, but the planning decision itself puts Enfield into the same conversation now reshaping London’s tennis footprint: councils and venue operators are beginning to treat padel as core infrastructure, not an experiment.