It’s the sport that’s taking Ireland by storm – so, how would you like to play it on a roof near you?
With everyone from David Beckham to Cristiano Ronaldo and Serena Williams known to play the racket sport, the padel fad looks like it is only going to get bigger. It’s even being talked about as a game for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Australia.
About 30 million people worldwide are said to play padel. A bit like squash and a bit like tennis, padel is played on a walled glass court, typically in doubles format. Around Ireland, padel courts have been built across the country.
Now it could be coming to a rooftop near you, as developers submit plans for padel courts on the top of apartment developments in Dublin.
But as the sport gets ever more popular the noise it causes might be becoming a bit of a headache when it comes to securing planning permission.
Rooftop padel
Echoing perhaps that 2005 tennis game between Roger Federer and Andre Agassi, which took place on a helipad at the top of the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, developers in Dublin are hoping to bring sport to the city’s skyline with plans for rooftop padel courts.
On North Wall Quay in Dublin city centre, the developers of City Block 9, a mixed-use residential and commercial development, have submitted plans to build a padel ball court at roof level and two at basement level.
It’s not the only apartment development hoping to target this market.
At The Old Glass Factory on Cork Street in the Liberties, Dublin 8, the developers of a co-living development by Grayling Properties and European private equity investor Crossroads Real Estate have submitted plans for a rooftop padel court five floors up.
The co-living development, with up to 378 bed spaces, is expected to launch later this year. (While co-living is now banned, this planning approval was granted before 2020.)
But why padel?
Peter Horgan, managing director of Grayling Properties, says the move is being driven by the needs of its residents, “who want their living spaces to have recreational facilities close at hand”.
“Rooftops are an often underutilised space, so we wanted to explore how we could best put it to use. Padel is growing fast in popularity, and is particularly popular with younger professionals – a key demographic for us. It also made sense in terms of the physical space constraints,” he says.
Horgan says the padel court is planned to be open only to the residents of the development and their guests.
Developers have offered amenities in the past such as communal lounges and kitchens, cinemas, gyms and libraries, so padel is a way of differentiating a new development and offering more to its residents.
The sport is also a part of Alta Verde in Blackrock, South Dublin, a new build-to-rent development of 246 apartments, which is due to be available for rent from summer. It will have a padel court available for use by residents.
And padel courts are also coming to people’s houses.
Padel at home
Compared with traditional tennis courts, padel courts require significantly less space, therefore making them ideal for rooftops and gardens.
“I’d say about 10 per cent [of homeowners] look to build on a redundant tennis court. It’s a really easy conversion,” Yvonne Dolan, managing director of Dolan Padel Courts, says.
For example, the owners of a home on Brighton Road in Foxrock, Co Dublin, were recently successful in their application to build a court on the grounds of their property.
Padel courts are cheaper to build than tennis courts. Dolan says you can expect costs of about €30,000 a court.
There are other advantages, too.
Dolan started playing padel 18 years ago when she lived in Spain, but it only became a business about six years ago when the sport arrived in Ireland. Since then, she has worked on the construction of about 37 courts – and expects to complete about double that this year.
“Generally sports is located around a sports club,” Dolan says, but adds that padel is different, noting that at about three-quarters of the size of a tennis court it can fit in a smaller space. Secondly, technology through apps such as Playtomic automates the booking process and allows people to find other people to play with easily.
“It runs itself and that is why padel is gone bananas,” she says.
It is one reason hotels have latched on to padel, opening courts not just for residents but also for the wider community on a pay-to-play basis – and as a revenue generator.
After all, it is not cheap to play on; you can rent a tennis court at Herbert Park in Ballsbridge, Dublin, for example, from €6 an adult per hour (€3.50 for a junior). But at Fitzpatrick’s in Killiney, you’ll pay €40 an hour for padel at peak times (plus €5 to rent a racket). At Padel Tennis Ireland in Cork, you’ll pay €49.05 peak (plus a similar racket hire fee).
Planning issues
It is one reason the construction of such courts is getting ever popular. But it also means that it might be getting that little bit trickier to secure planning.
Part of this down to the noise a game of padel makes. The type of racket used, with its flat face, the balls hitting off glass walls as well as padel being a sport typically played by four players, so rallies are longer, all combine to make it a noisier proposition than tennis. It’s estimated that a game of padel is about 20 decibels higher than that of a tennis match, so much so that the Netherlands has introduced noise limits for newly built outdoor padel courts.
While padel has become a mainstay at many clubs around the country, including Naas, Fitzwilliam and Sutton, at hotels such as Fitzpatrick’s in Killiney and Castlemartyr in Cork as well as at purpose-built locations such as PadelLK, which has just opened in Limerick, others are struggling to get their plans over the line.
Blackrock College RFC recently submitted planning for two courts on its lands on Stradbrook Road in Blackrock – a decision on which is pending. Residents in the immediate vicinity have complained about the “noisy sport”.
“The detrimental impact on our amenity is primarily related to visual impact, light pollution, noise intrusion, and loss of privacy,” one objector wrote.
Meanwhile, Carrickmines Lawn & Tennis Club is looking to build two padel courts at its premises – close to neighbouring housing estates, rather than at the other end of the club, which is closer to the noisy M50. As a result, residents in the surrounding area have expressed concern about the position of the courts, given their “immediate proximity to the houses in Brighton Court and neighbouring Brighton Avenue”.
A better option, residents say, would be to sacrifice one of the club’s many tennis courts, or use the four croquet lawns, which turn into tennis courts during the summer.
[ I’ve discovered padel, and it has been a wonderful revelationOpens in new window ]
Planners turned down the proposal, refusing it on the grounds of the proposed removal of mature trees and hedges. They also requested that the club undertake a sound-impact assessment and mitigation plan for the courts.
Those involved in building the sport may also do well to bear in mind the experience of Sweden. The country was one of the early embracers of the sport as its 300 courts rapidly ballooned to 3,500 between 2018 and 2021, but the padel boom there has recently shown signs of busting as padel-related companies file for bankruptcy amid over-supply and waning interest from the middle class.
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