The noise from the racquets will be too loud for the mental health of the neighboring households, thus the council has banned proposals to turn a Bath tennis court into padel courts. Padel is similar to squash but is played with a solid racquet. It has one of the quickest rates of growth among sports today, and it started in Mexico. Nevertheless, Bath does not currently have a location for this sport, even with its recent surge in popularity after the Covid-19 shutdown.
The Lansdown Tennis, Squash and Croquet Club reports that sixty of its members often travel from Bath to Bristol for the purpose of playing squash. However, a planning proposal to construct two padel courts at the club was turned down last week by Bath and North East Somerset Council. One of the eleven tennis courts in the club was to have been replaced with two padel courts and a tiny tennis court.
The padel courts, which should be surrounded by 3 m-high glazed glass to limit noise, would have been the closest residence, at a distance of only 3.5 meters.
Tessa Hampton of Context Planning addressed the council’s planning committee on July 31 on behalf of the neighbors.: “Padel tennis produces a lot more noise and disruption than tennis because of the hard bats and pressurized balls that bounce off the court walls all the time.”
