Sholing FC gets approval for six-court padel centre at Mackoy Stadium

Sholing FC has won planning permission for a six-court padel centre at Mackoy Stadium, adding covered courts, a Pilates studio, changing facilities, refreshments and parking to its Portsmouth Road base. The club filed the application on 27 January 2026 under reference F/26/100816, and Eastleigh Borough Council ran the consultation until 6 March before reaching its statutory decision date of 28 April.

The scheme sits at the club’s home ground in Bursledon, on the Southampton side of Hampshire, and it arrives alongside a separate development already approved for a new community head office building. That building, approved on 24 March 2026, will replace the current clubhouse and changing rooms and gives Sholing a broader redevelopment plan that links football operations, community use and new commercial income on the same site.

Sholing called the padel approval a “significant milestone” in the club’s continued growth and long-term vision. The football club is also preparing for its Southern League Premier South campaign after finishing sixth last season, so the off-pitch investment lands at a point when the ground is being asked to do more than host matchdays. A padel centre that includes a studio and café can add daytime use, training traffic and secondary spend in a way a football-only site cannot.

The timing reflects how quickly the UK padel market has expanded. The Lawn Tennis Association said participation more than trebled in 2024 and climbed beyond 400,000 players, while Savills put the national court count at 710 by the end of 2024, up from fewer than 40 in 2016. In Southampton, where market analysis points to just two padel venues and nine courts serving about 270,000 residents, the shortage is still acute enough that established sports clubs can move faster than standalone developers.

That is where multi-sport sites start to matter. Sholing already has the land, parking and a built-in sports audience at Mackoy Stadium, which makes the club a practical vehicle for new padel capacity rather than a speculative one. The club has said it sees extra facilities as part of its duty to protect “the longevity and financial stability of the club” and maintain a long-term vision for football and the community, and this approval pushes that model one step further.