The Kestrel Centre, Northampton

Councils typically guard employment land closely, and proposals for leisure uses will often need to demonstrate through an extensive marketing exercise that there is no realistic demand for business or employment use before a change will be considered.

Padel Plan took a different approach. We developed a planning strategy that allowed the site to be used for padel while retaining the ability for it to return to employment use in the future without the need for a further planning permission. This protected the site's longer-term employment potential while allowing the padel club to open in the meantime.

This approach gave planning officers the reassurance they needed and removed the requirement for a lengthy and costly marketing exercise, which could otherwise have added many months to the project before an application was even submitted.

The application was approved within eight weeks, allowing our client to move quickly towards opening the venue.

Protected employment land is often seen as unsuitable for padel, but this scheme shows that, with the right planning strategy, it can be a realistic option. Padel Plan combines specialist knowledge of padel development with a detailed understanding of planning policy to identify practical solutions and secure decisions efficiently for our clients.