Regency Hotel padel courts in Solihull move closer to approval

Planning officers backed the Regency Hotel’s padel scheme in Shirley, recommending approval for application PL/2024/01518/PPFL after it attracted more than five objections. The plan covers the hotel on Stratford Road, Solihull, B90 4EB, and includes padel and pickleball courts, a customer kiosk, hardstanding, means of enclosure, lighting and other associated infrastructure.

A December 2025 planning statement prepared by Claremont Planning Consultancy Ltd on behalf of Corte Sport Limited set out the core proposal as two semi-covered padel tennis courts and one uncovered padel tennis court, all within use class F2. The statement said the courts would sit to the rear of the Regency Hotel, a layout that matters here because it shapes both who uses them and how much of the activity is visible from surrounding properties.

That visibility has already fed the access-versus-amenity debate. Local coverage said the hotel wants the courts for guests and the wider community, but the applicant also acknowledged that padel courts elsewhere in the country have generated noise complaints from neighbours. Semi-covered courts may help contain some of the sound and weather exposure, but the package still brings the familiar planning flashpoints: lighting spill, evening use, the hardstanding needed around the courts and how much traffic the site can absorb without turning a hotel add-on into a nuisance for the street outside.

The council’s planning report put the project into committee precisely because objections stacked up, with over five received before officers concluded the scheme should go ahead subject to conditions and a unilateral undertaking. That is the key detail for Solihull residents watching the file: this is not being treated as a private leisure extra hidden inside a hotel complex, but as a proposal with enough public-facing impact to need formal committee scrutiny.

There is also wider sporting context in the borough. Solihull Council adopted its Playing Pitch and Outdoor Sports Strategy in June 2024, a sign the authority has been planning more actively for sports provision. And the Regency Hotel is not the only padel play on the local map: Pure Padel said it planned to open a club at Moseley Cricket Club on Streetsbrook Road, Solihull, B90 3PE, with three covered courts and one uncovered court in early 2026. Against that backdrop, the Regency Hotel bid looks less like a one-off and more like another test of how much padel Solihull can absorb, and who gets the best shot at booking it.