Squab Hall Farm Padel Courts Approved Against Advice

Three indoor padel courts will be built at Squab Hall Farm, off Harbury Lane, after Warwick District Council’s planning committee approved them against its officers’ advice on Wednesday 14 October.

The same meeting put off a decision on six large industrial units at Thickthorn, on the edge of Kenilworth. Councillors want to see more of what the buildings would look like.

Both outcomes are in the council’s summary of decisions, published after the meeting. The summary says on its face that it is not the formal minutes, which will follow.

Why councillors overruled officers on the padel courts

Application W/26/0492, from T.I. Evans and Sons, turns a vacant storage building at the farm into three padel courts with changing rooms and a cafe. The farm sits south of Harbury Lane, between Leamington and Bishops Tachbrook.

Officers had recommended refusal for two reasons, set out in the committee report:

• loss of employment land: the council’s Local Plan expects two years of marketing before a business building changes use, and this one had about 15 months
• reliance on the car: Harbury Lane is a 50mph road with no footway or street lights, the nearest homes are about 800 metres away, and no bus serves the site

Councillors took a different view. The summary records that they granted permission “because it created local employment opportunities and benefits to the community health and sports facilities, which outweighed the harm that had been identified”.

Conditions have not been set yet. The committee gave that job to the council’s Head of Place, Arts and Economy, in consultation with the chair of the planning committee. The formal decision notice will follow once they are agreed.

What the report said about the building

The report gives the history of the unit, known as Unit 8:

• it was last used for pallet storage and has been empty since December 2024, when the farm lost a key customer
• the farm marketed it itself for nine months, December 2024 to August 2025
• agents Bromwich Hardy then marketed it for six months, September 2025 to March 2026, at £142,000 a year
• there was no firm interest from industrial or warehouse firms, but five enquiries from padel operators

The building has 30 parking spaces. The council’s parking standard would ask for 105, but officers accepted that 30 was enough at peak times: up to 12 players on court, 12 waiting and six staff. The building already runs on power from 180kW of solar panels.

The application had support from Bishops Tachbrook Parish Council, which said it would add a useful facility to the parish, and from a representative of Oakley School, writing for its pupils. Highways, ecology and environmental health officers did not object. No updates on it were received after the agenda was published.

The applicant also offered to open a 360-metre farm track from Oakley Wood Road to people on foot and on bikes. Officers did not think an unlit track beside fields would be used all year round.

Padel courts have already been approved at Kenilworth Tennis and Squash Club and at The Warwickshire golf club. Officers said those were existing sports sites, which Squab Hall Farm is not.

Thickthorn: decision deferred

Application W/24/1536 is the detailed design for the employment land in the East of Kenilworth development, beside the A46 at Thickthorn Island. It proposes six general industrial units totalling 22,000 square metres. We set out the scheme and the objections in our preview of the meeting.

Officers had recommended approval. The committee deferred it instead. The summary says that is to allow for “further visual information including CGI images” and a review of:

• the layout, scale and massing of Building 1
• the landscaping
• the hours of operation

Hours were already an issue before the meeting. The proposed condition allowed working from 7am to 11pm, seven days a week. Councillor Dickson asked in writing whether site activity could stop at 9pm on weekdays and 1pm on Saturdays. Officers replied that the hours came from the environmental health officer’s review of the noise report, and warned that a different limit “may be subject to challenge”.

The council’s update report added three conditions before the meeting: sound insulation, vibration insulation and approval of all external lighting. One more objection had come in. It said the units would ruin “that important first impression of Kenilworth”.

The rest of Wednesday’s list

What it means for you

• Padel players: the courts cannot open until the conditions are agreed and the decision notice is issued. No opening date has been given. The site is a drive or a long walk from Warwick Gates and Bishops Tachbrook, as the officers’ report makes clear.
• Kenilworth residents near Thickthorn: the scheme will come back to a later planning committee with more images. The date has not been set; it will appear on the council’s committee calendar.
• Telford Avenue neighbours: the application stays open while the entrance is discussed.

The committee was also given the council’s appeals report, which shows that half the district’s planning appeals this year went against the council. We look at what that report says separately.

How to find any application and comment on it is explained on our planning applications page.