The UK Padel Boom and Its Fire Safety Implications

Padel has arrived. From just 68 courts in the UK in 2019, the Lawn Tennis Association confirmed that Great Britain reached 1,000 padel courts by July 2025, with the total rising to over 1,550 courts across 559 venues by end of year. Player numbers followed: over 860,000 adults and juniors played padel at least once in 2025, more than double the 400,000 recorded in 2024. London and the South East account for nearly 30 per cent of all courts nationally, making the capital the epicentre of UK padel development.

Behind each of those courts is a development project. Whether a purpose-built padel club, a conversion of a warehouse or industrial unit, or the addition of courts to an existing leisure, hotel or mixed-use scheme, each project requiring building control approval needs a fire strategy. Fire Safety Services has direct experience of producing fire strategies for padel court developments across London and the wider UK. This article sets out what developers, club operators, architects and investors need to understand about fire safety for padel facilities and why getting the fire strategy right from the outset prevents programme delays and costly redesigns.

The Regulatory Framework for Padel Developments

There is no bespoke fire safety standard for padel courts in the UK. Fire strategies for padel facilities are produced against Approved Document B Volume 2, the guidance for buildings other than dwellinghouses, which classifies indoor sports facilities as assembly and recreation buildings. Where a warehouse is being converted without full change of use, the classification may differ, and the fire engineering approach must reflect the actual occupancy.

The use classification matters significantly. A purpose-built padel club with changing rooms, a reception, and a cafe will typically be classified as an assembly and recreation building. A padel court installed within an industrial shell, where the principal use remains industrial, may be assessed differently. The fire strategy must correctly identify the use classification and apply the appropriate Approved Document B guidance, since compartment sizes, travel distances and means of escape requirements all vary between assembly and industrial use.

Where the padel development involves a change of use, for example converting a warehouse or vacant retail unit to Class E(d) indoor sport, a building control application is required. The fire safety requirements for an indoor sports facility differ materially from those of a warehouse: different occupant numbers, different fire loads, different evacuation requirements. The change of use is itself a trigger for a fire strategy.

Warehouse Conversions: The Most Common Fire Engineering Challenge

The most common padel development type we advise on is the warehouse conversion. Across London, in areas such as Park Royal, Wembley, Bermondsey, Canning Town and the wider industrial belt, large numbers of older warehouse units are being converted to indoor padel facilities. The economics are compelling: warehouse rents in outer London remain relatively competitive, ceiling heights of 7 to 10 metres are ideal for padel play, and open plan footprints accommodate multiple courts efficiently.

But warehouse conversions for padel present specific fire engineering challenges that are consistently underestimated at the outset of design:

• Travel distances: Approved Document B limits the travel distance to a final exit in an assembly building. Large warehouse footprints, particularly those with four or more courts arranged in a grid, regularly exceed the maximum travel distance of 32 metres where alternative escape routes exist. The fire strategy must either justify the exceedance through compensating measures or the court layout must be redesigned to bring escape routes within compliant distances
• Compartmentation in existing structures: Industrial warehouses are typically single large fire compartments with no internal compartment walls. Adding changing rooms, reception, plant room, bar or cafe introduces compartmentation requirements that the existing structure was not designed to accommodate. Fire stopping at junctions between new partition walls and the existing roof structure is a persistent and frequently missed issue in padel conversions
• Means of escape alongside court enclosures: The court enclosures, glass panels to 3 metres with steel mesh above, are not fire-rated construction. If escape routes pass alongside court enclosures, the fire strategy must address how occupants can evacuate safely when smoke fills the upper volume of the warehouse and lateral visibility is reduced
• Emergency lighting provision: Warehouse units frequently have minimal compliant emergency lighting. Indoor padel facilities require adequate emergency lighting throughout court areas, in changing rooms, and along all escape routes. This requirement is regularly identified late when it should be addressed at design stage
• Fire load from ancillary uses: The padel courts themselves carry a relatively low fire load. The ancillary spaces, reception, cafe, equipment storage and plant room, introduce higher fire loads that the fire strategy must address through appropriate compartmentation from the court area

Purpose-Built Padel Facilities: Key Fire Strategy Considerations

For purpose-built padel clubs, whether standalone buildings or padel courts integrated into larger mixed-use leisure or hotel developments, the fire strategy is typically more straightforward than a warehouse conversion because the building can be designed from the outset to accommodate fire safety requirements. However, there are specific considerations that differentiate padel from other assembly building types.

Occupancy Load and Evacuation

A four-court padel facility with a cafe and spectator area can accommodate significant numbers of occupants simultaneously. The fire strategy must calculate the design occupant number for each area and confirm that escape routes are adequate for simultaneous evacuation. Padel venues increasingly operate as social destinations as much as sports facilities, with peak occupancies that may significantly exceed the number of players on court. Occupancy density assumptions for the social and bar areas require careful analysis, separate from the court areas.

Smoke Ventilation in High-Bay Padel Spaces

The high-bay nature of indoor padel buildings, with ceiling heights of 7 to 10 metres, creates specific smoke ventilation considerations. In a fire, smoke accumulates in the upper volume before descending to the level where it threatens occupants and obscures escape signage. The fire strategy must address how smoke in the upper volume is managed, whether through natural ventilation via roof vents, mechanical smoke extract, or by demonstrating through engineering analysis that the time before smoke descends to a hazardous level is sufficient for full evacuation of the facility.

Padel in Mixed-Use Schemes

A growing proportion of padel courts are being incorporated into mixed-use developments, hotels integrating padel as a leisure amenity, residential-led schemes incorporating ground floor padel as an active frontage use, or commercial office schemes adding padel as an occupier attraction. In each case the fire strategy must address the interface between the padel facility and the other uses. Escape routes from the padel area must not pass through other occupied areas. Compartmentation between the padel use and residential or hotel uses above must be maintained. The alarm system zoning must support both the padel-specific evacuation arrangements and the wider building evacuation strategy.

Sprinklers

Approved Document B does not mandate sprinklers in all indoor sports facilities. However, for padel facilities within larger mixed-use schemes, sprinkler systems may be required as a compensating measure for travel distance exceedances or to achieve acceptable compartment sizes without excessive structural fire protection. For facilities in mixed-use developments in Greater London, sprinkler systems are increasingly specified as standard. Where sprinklers are provided, the fire strategy must address their scope and interface with the alarm system.

Planning Fire Statements for Padel Court Applications

Padel court planning applications in Greater London require a fire statement under London Plan Policy D12a where the application qualifies as major development, typically those with over 1,000 square metres of floorspace. For padel developments with four or more courts and ancillary facilities, this threshold is regularly exceeded. Fire Safety Services has produced D12a fire statements for padel court applications across London boroughs, addressing the specific fire safety implications of the padel use within the D12a framework.

Outside London, the volume of padel planning applications means local planning authorities are becoming more familiar with the use type. Some authorities now specifically request fire safety information for larger padel facilities even where it is not formally required. A well-prepared planning fire statement addressing the escape strategy, compartmentation concept and firefighting access for the proposed facility demonstrates to the planning authority and the fire service that fire safety has been considered from the outset of the design.

Our Experience of Padel Court Fire Strategies

Fire Safety Services has produced fire strategies and planning fire statements for padel court developments across London and the wider UK, from single-court additions at existing leisure facilities to multi-court purpose-built clubs and warehouse conversion schemes. Our experience of the specific fire engineering challenges of padel developments, particularly the travel distance and compartmentation issues common in warehouse conversions, means we can identify and resolve these issues at an early stage before they become embedded in the design.