Padel Club Business Plan: What a Club Costs to Build and Run, and How It Might Pay Back

Last updated October 2026

A four-court outdoor padel club costs about £268,000 ex VAT and fees for courts, lights and base on LTA 2025 figures, and about £377,000 all in on one published model that adds planning, fencing, booking software and a basic clubhouse. That same model, from the UK Padel Guide, claims payback in under two years for a busy venue and four to five years in a crowded market. Those are the guide’s claims, not ours. Allow six to nine months from the decision to build to opening day.

The build cost is the one number in a padel business plan you can pin down before you open, so start there.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Padel club build cost by size and cover, UK, £ ex VAT and fees, 2026 planning figures

Club size	Outdoor, floodlit (court and base)	With canopies over every court	Source
2 courts	£148,000	£318,000	LTA 2025; covered figure is our sum of the LTA court and canopy lines
4 courts	£268,000	£584,000	LTA 2025; covered figure is our sum of the LTA court and canopy lines
4 courts, all in, on existing hardstanding	About £377,000	Not given	UK Padel Guide model, 13 Oct 2026

Typical figures only. Your site, ground and planning conditions set the real price, which we confirm after a survey.

What does a padel club cost to build, line by line?

On the UK Padel Guide’s model, a four-court outdoor venue on existing hardstanding comes to about £377,000. The LTA’s own table covers the court and base only, at £268,000 for four courts.

Line	Four courts (UK Padel Guide model)
Court kit	£220,000
Groundworks	£72,000
Lighting and electrics	£42,000
Planning, fees and contingency	£18,000
Fencing, signage, booking software and basic clubhouse	£25,000
Total	About £377,000

The guide gives a wider all-in range of £250,000 to £450,000 for four courts. Two things to test in your own plan:

• Groundworks. The guide’s £72,000 assumes existing hardstanding. On a greenfield site, the LTA’s base line for four courts is £140,000, so use the LTA figure until a survey says otherwise.
• Planning. £18,000 covers planning, fees and contingency together. On a scheme near homes, the noise impact assessment and lighting assessment are real costs, and refusal is a real risk (see below).

The same guide says buying four panoramic courts together can save 10 to 15% per court against buying them one at a time. Our padel court cost guide breaks down every line.

What does a padel club cost to run each year?

For the courts themselves, the LTA recommends a sinking fund of £1,500 per court per year for surface, lamp and column replacement, and estimates LED lighting at about £1 an hour per court.

The UK Padel Guide adds operating costs to its four-court model, again as its own figures:

Running cost	Four-court figure	Source
LTA sinking fund (surface, lamps, columns)	£6,000 a year	LTA 2025, at £1,500 per court
Glass sinking fund	£6,000 a year	UK Padel Guide, at £1,500 per court
Aftercare contract	£3,200 to £6,000 a year	UK Padel Guide, at £800 to £1,500 per court
Variable costs (all)	£55,000 a year	UK Padel Guide model
Fixed costs (all)	£70,000 a year	UK Padel Guide model

The per-court lines are multiplied out by us. The fixed and variable totals are the guide’s own assumptions; your staff, rent, rates and insurance will set your real figures. Budget for new turf too: the LTA expects a resurface roughly every five years. See padel court flooring for carpet prices.

What utilisation and court prices should a padel business plan assume?

Use cautious figures, and label them as assumptions. The most detailed published model, from the UK Padel Guide, claims 55% utilisation for an established venue, about 25% in month three rising to 50 to 60% by month twelve, and 35 to 40% in competitive London and the South East.

The same model assumes these hire rates:

Rate assumption (UK Padel Guide claim)	Per court, per hour
Off-peak	£24
Peak	£36
Blended	£28
Annual revenue per court at its assumptions	£83,800

For a real-world check, Glasgow Club Scotstoun charges £28 per adult doubles game, £7 each, according to Glasgow Life in February 2026. The guide presents these as its own model, not audited club accounts, and we have not tested them either. Build your plan on your own local booking evidence and treat the published model as one reference point.

How long does a padel club take to pay back?

It depends almost entirely on how busy the courts are. The UK Padel Guide’s model claims an EBITDA of about £210,000 a year for four courts at 55% utilisation, which it says repays £377,000 in about 1.8 years. At 35 to 40% utilisation, the same model stretches payback to four to five years.

A council example gives a second reference. Hounslow Council projects £1.4 million of additional income over four years from six courts that cost £950,000 of capital. That is the council’s own projection for its leisure centres, run by Lampton Leisure.

These are other people’s models. We build courts; we do not forecast your trading, and we make no promise about returns. What we can do is give you a written, itemised build quote and a realistic programme, which narrows two of the biggest unknowns in your plan.

What does planning risk do to a padel business plan?

It can stop the business entirely, or cap the hours you can sell. Noise is the main reason padel schemes are refused.

Two kinds of risk belong in the plan:

Refusal or enforcement. In Harrogate, an enforcement notice in October 2025 ordered the use of two David Lloyd courts to stop, and a fresh application was refused on noise in April 2026, although officers had recommended approval. In Sheffield, an abatement notice stopped play at Ecclesall Lawn Tennis Club. Rushcliffe Borough Council told a Freedom of Information request in August 2025 that it had received five new padel club applications that year and approved none at that point.

Hours conditions. Every hour the council removes is an hour you cannot sell. Compare:

Scheme	Hours allowed
Henfield Leisure Centre (Horsham DC)	Weekdays 07:00 to 21:30; weekends 08:00 to 17:00
Silksworth, Sunderland	Daytime only
House of Padel, Belfast (indoor)	07:00 to 23:00
Football World, Cross Green, Leeds	6am to 11.30pm

A plan that assumes evening and weekend peak rates needs a permission that allows them. That is why our padel court planning permission service starts with the noise and lighting case, before the layout is fixed.

How long from decision to opening day?

Six to nine months, according to the UK Padel Guide, which breaks it down as feasibility of 2 to 4 weeks, kit lead time of 8 to 14 weeks, groundworks of 3 to 5 weeks per phase, about a week per court to install and 1 to 2 weeks to commission.

The planning decision sits in the middle of that. In England the statutory period for a non-major application is 8 weeks and for a major one 13 weeks, unless a longer period is agreed with the applicant, according to gov.uk. Your opening date, and your first month’s revenue, follow from the date permission is granted.

How does court type change the business case?

Outdoor courts are the cheapest way in, covered courts protect income from the weather, and indoor centres cost the most. On LTA figures, a canopy adds about £95,000 for one court and £316,000 for four.

The UK Padel Guide says indoor builds run 50 to 100% higher than outdoor, because of the building envelope. One way to phase it: two open courts first, with the base and drainage designed so canopies can follow. The LTA Facility Loan Scheme prioritises covered courts, which can make the second phase easier to fund for a not-for-profit club. See padel court canopy and indoor padel centre.

Is the market getting crowded?

It is growing fast, which cuts both ways. The LTA counted 1,000,000 padel players in Britain in May 2026, with 1,825 courts at 551 venues, up from 1,000 courts at 325 venues in July 2025.

Barbour ABI, the construction data firm, tracked 872 padel planning applications between January and July 2026, more than double the whole of 2025. More players means more demand. More applications means more competition near you, which is exactly the “crowded market” case in the published payback model. Check what has been approved within your catchment before you fix your utilisation figure.

How can the build be funded?

Through the LTA Facility Loan Scheme if you are a not-for-profit club, and through your own capital, investors or a deal with a landowner if you are a company. The LTA scheme lends at 5% fixed and excludes individuals and companies limited by shares.

Councils have used other routes: Coventry is leasing park land to a developer who builds and runs the courts, and Colchester’s five courts at Leisure World are funded privately by Padel United UK. Our padel court funding guide covers each route.

How we help with your business plan

We give you the part of the plan you can rely on: a site-specific build price and programme, and the planning case that decides your hours.

• a survey and layout showing how many courts your site takes
• an itemised quote: base, courts, lights, canopy and planning reports as separate lines
• a programme from pre-application advice to opening
• an early view on planning risk, noise and hours

Padel Court Build is a SustainPlan Ltd service, and our planning consultants, sustainability assessors, groundworks team and installers price the plan’s capital lines together. Start with our padel club build page.

Sources

• Cost table, canopy lines, sinking fund, LED cost, resurfacing interval: LTA Padel Court Construction Guidance Note 2025 (read 17 Oct 2026)
• Four-court model, line items, panoramic saving, running costs, utilisation, rates, revenue, EBITDA, payback, timings, indoor uplift: UK Padel Guide, 13 Oct 2026 (the guide’s own model, not audited)
• Statutory decision periods: gov.uk “Determining a planning application”, updated 8 Apr 2026
• Glasgow hire price: Glasgow Life, 27 Feb 2026
• Hounslow: hounslow.gov.uk news 10159
• Harrogate: The Stray Ferret, 28 Apr 2026; Sheffield: Sheffield Star, Oct 2026; Rushcliffe FOI response, 15 Aug 2025
• Hours: Horsham DC report DC/23/1177; Sunderland Echo, 28 Sep 2026; Irish News, Mar 2026; Yorkshire Evening Post, 6 Aug 2026
• Player and court numbers: LTA Padel news, 15 May 2026 and 17 Jul 2025
• Planning applications: Barbour ABI (read 17 Oct 2026)
• LTA loan: lta.org.uk Facility Loan Scheme (read 17 Oct 2026); Coventry: Hello Rayo, 2 Oct 2025; Colchester: Colchester City Council news