Morville padel centre plan offers free access for primary pupils

Morville’s proposed padel centre would give primary school pupils free access, making the village scheme as much about rural sports access as court count. A July 2026 planning statement set out a full application to convert an agricultural shed north of Morville, Bridgnorth, into two padel courts, with a pedestrian footway and overflow parking tied to Morville Primary C of E School.

The application names James Fenwick and Hettie Fenwick as the client and carries Berrys reference SA57573 for the site at Agricultural Building To The North Of Morville, Bridgnorth, Shropshire, WV16 4RL. The layout points to a shared-use model: the courts would sit alongside access works meant to handle school traffic as well as ordinary leisure use in a small Shropshire village.

That school-facing approach fits the Lawn Tennis Association’s education-venues guidance, which positions padel for schools and similar settings. It also sits within a planning environment where padel courts in the UK usually need permission, because the sport’s move into converted buildings, parking changes and wider leisure use brings regulatory issues beyond a simple court install.

Morville is not the only rural or education-linked site in the picture. BBC coverage in 2026 documented a padel and pickleball centre proposal in Albrighton, while another plan at Uppingham Community College in Rutland would bring 10 covered courts to a London Road site. Together, those schemes show padel pushing beyond affluent city clusters and into smaller towns, school grounds and converted buildings.

For Morville, the free-access promise matters locally because it links the project directly to primary pupils rather than treating the courts as a standalone private facility. If approved, the plan would test whether a village-scale, school-adjacent development can become a usable blueprint for grassroots padel in underserved areas, with the school, the Fenwicks and the wider Bridgnorth area all set to share the same footprint.