120 people pack one padel court for a world record, then the council says no
A hotel court near Newbury with 1,500 registered players has been refused retrospective planning permission.
You can't fault the effort. Around 120 supporters crammed onto the padel court at The Retreat at Elcot Park, a hotel near Newbury, to show how much it means to them. The Padel Paper reports that the gathering set a new world record for the most people on a padel court. Days later, West Berkshire Council refused to let the court stay.
A court built without permission
The court went in in November 2025, replacing a tennis court that wasn't getting much use. The hotel wrongly assumed it would not need planning permission, so it had to apply retrospectively. In the year since, the court has built up 1,500 registered players.
The application drew 67 comments online: 64 in support and three against. Even so, councillors voted seven to one, with one abstention, to refuse it. Concerns about noise for neighbours and the lack of a nearby bus stop were the reasons reported.
Shortsighted, or overdue?
Ed Hopkins, who organised the record-breaking show of support, called the decision "incredibly shortsighted". He told The Padel Paper that the court gives a lot of joy to people of all ages, that a local disabled children's charity, Swings and Smiles, uses it in the school holidays, and that he was unimpressed when one councillor made a ball-game pun before voting against.
The other side of the argument came from councillor Martin Colston, who said the application should have come before the court was built, rather than after neighbours had lived with it for a year.
What happens next
The door is not closed. Will Stephens of Courts Padel, which runs coaching on the court, said a canopy to reduce noise had come up as a positive option and that the council was keen to see a new application including one. Hotel manager Ed Lyle said they had learned things at the meeting that would help them improve their bid, and councillor Paul Dick told the BBC that the committee hoped to see a better-prepared application.
So the record stands, even if the court's future is still up in the air.
