The LTA, Sheffield City Council, Sport England and social enterprise Courtside have joined forces to open the UK’s first community park activity hub to include padel courts.
Two covered padel courts officially opened last weekend in Hillsborough Park, opposite Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium, as part of a multi-use public facility which also includes three tennis courts, mini golf, a café and clubhouse for fitness, yoga, Zumba and social activities.
Weekly padel sessions for beginners, juniors, over-50s, women and team-standard players have already begun, as well as kids’ holiday camps which use all the Hub’s facilities including the padel courts. All padel programmes are pay-and-play to reduce cost barriers. Sessions start at around £7.
Outreach programmes offering free sessions to local schools are also under way, as well as a partnership with Sheffield University and plans with Sheffield Wednesday FC Community Programme to include padel as part of Alternative Provision for children who are not in full-time mainstream education.
The project marks one of the first additions of padel to the LTA’s £30million Park Tennis Project which is bringing thousands of existing park tennis courts in poor or unplayable condition back to life for the benefit of communities.
Co-funded by the LTA, LTA Tennis Foundation, Sheffield City Council and lottery money from Sport England, the site will be operated by Courtside, a Community Interest Company (CIC) dedicated to increasing physical activity and promoting community through the transformation of local parks. They neatly summarise their offer as “a brew, a loo and lots to do!”
Over the last decade, Courtside has activated tennis courts at nine parks across Sheffield for public use with outreach in schools and local partnerships. But they’ve realised that tennis alone is too hard to sustain economically with overheads including coaches, court maintenance and seven-days-a-week customer service.
“Padel is a great addition…”
“There are very real costs in making sport affordable and lowering barriers to participation,” Courtside CEO Jeff Hunter told The Padel Paper. “So we conceived this idea of multi-use facilities in parks.
“It’s different from a club, a leisure centre or gym. The concept uses the natural green space in a park and repurposes its facilities for modern-day use. Padel is a great addition because of its growth and popularity.”
Courtside’s Activity Director, Ed Isard, and Sheffield Area Manager, Reuben Newman-Billington, have coordinated a mix of programmes to bring as many different demographics as possible into the Hillsborough Activity Hub.
“I care deeply about having a big variety to who’s on our courts,” said Isard. “I don’t want to see only 35-year-old blokes playing padel. We want a mixture of gender and ages. Our first social padel sessions contained an age range from 22 to 72. That’s what’s really important.”
Sophie Curthoys, Investment Manager at LTA, says the governing body wants to replicate the Hillsborough Activity Hub model in other parks across Britain.
“The LTA’s role is to work with community, not-for-profit and charitable organisations to support them in adding a padel offering,” said Curthoys. “Courtside are one of a number of tennis operators running facilities in parks around the country and the next logical step is to floodlight the tennis courts and add padel.
“Off the back of our park scheme, we’ve been making strides with the government to obtain funding to put padel courts in strategic hubs in areas where we know there is low provision of covered tennis and padel.
“The concept is to bring different people and families together in a really nice community venue that will provide local opportunities to engage in racket-based sports. We’re trying to break down typical barriers and give people a lower-cost entry point into padel.”
