Peterborough gets green light for new 15-court padel venue

Peterborough has approved a 15-court padel venue, giving the city its first major dedicated site as Cambridgeshire’s padel build-out moves from scattered proposals to real scale. Peterborough does not currently have any padel facilities, but that is now set to change after a run of applications that shows the sport is no longer a fringe ask at planning level.

The size of the scheme matters. A 15-court venue is a long way from the smaller club-led projects that have already tested the system elsewhere in the county. Cambridge City Council planning papers for Cambridge Rugby Union Club’s separate bid on Grantchester Road in Newnham set out five floodlit padel courts, a club hut and landscaping, then sent the application to committee because of third-party representations, site history and policy conflicts. Green Belt was one of the key issues in that case, and neighbours also raised concerns about the noise from the courts.

That contrast captures where padel sits in Cambridgeshire right now: demand is moving faster than the planning comfort zone. Peterborough City Council has received numerous padel planning applications in recent months, and the city’s first facilities are arriving as demand for court slots has surged across the county. The pressure is not just about interest in the sport, but about whether the region can keep up with the kind of site numbers and court density that turn padel from a novelty into an everyday booking.

For Peterborough, the approval is more than another recreation scheme. It marks the point where padel begins to look like infrastructure rather than experiment, and the difference between a 15-court venue and a five-court proposal shows how quickly the sport’s footprint is expanding in Cambridgeshire.