Anger at plan to convert Olympic Park tennis courts to padel
Indoor courts at the Olympic tennis centre are set to be replaced by padel courts, prompting a backlash from 'extremely livid' local residents and wheelchair tennis players.
The Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre informed members by email on Tuesday that it was converting its indoor hall of four tennis courts into seven double and two single padel courts to 'grow participation across all ages'.
The email said that the centre was planning for work to begin this summer and finish by the autumn, with scheduled courses moved to its six remaining outdoor courts.
However, within two days 650 locals had signed a petition calling for a reversal of the decision, which has been labelled 'disappointing' by the Lawn Tennis Association less than a week before Wimbledon.
The petition was started by James Labous, a father of two from Walthamstow, east London, who has been playing tennis there for ten years. 'Indoor courts are actually vital for the tennis infrastructure in this country, considering our climate,' he said.
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'There aren't enough indoor courts in the country and that's probably why the sport isn't played all year round and partly why we're not developing the players we should be. This facility is a jewel and it's going to be lost.'
The centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was purpose-built for the 2012 Paralympics — the Olympic tennis was hosted at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon — and opened to the public in 2014 after a £30 million renovation.
The indoor courts, Labous said, are rarely available to book on weekday evenings due to their popularity, with sessions for university groups and some 'really promising juniors'.
He said regular players at the centre were 'all extremely livid'.
'It's an Olympic legacy site, it's state-of-the-art, it's a wheelchair-accessible centre,' he said, 'There was no consultation with the users of the centre. They're clearly trying to push this through really quickly.'
Labous described the pay-as-you-go courts as inclusive, unlike several 'stuffy tennis clubs' in the country, adding that the year-round coaching was good value.
He questioned why the centre could not redevelop other spaces, such as one of two car parks.
Manoj Soma, the founder of Choice International UK, a disability equality charity, has been coaching and managing wheelchair tennis sessions at Lee Valley every Sunday for almost five years.
'I was extremely disappointed, because this was one of the only fully accessible, disabled-friendly venues in east London,' he said of the decision.
Although he welcomed the opportunity for disabled people to try padel, he said: 'Wheelchair tennis is one of the paralympic sports — not padel as far as I am aware.'
Soma said he had not been consulted about the change. He questioned why the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA), which owns the centre, had not proposed converting only some of the indoor courts or even creating outdoor padel spaces.
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The LVRPA, a public authority part-funded by a council tax levy, did not hold a public consultation before announcing the plans, which will cost £490,347.
Shaun Dawson, chief executive of the LVRPA, said that the Better leisure centre group, which operates the facility, had originally come to him with a proposal for padel courts.
He said the LVRPA had rejected an earlier 'hybrid' proposal to retain some of the indoor tennis courts due to volume levels of padel alongside tennis. He said that they did not consider building a new structure on the site as it was designated Metropolitan Open Land, making planning approval more difficult.
'We want to make it far busier, more inclusive, more accessible in terms of different sports, and clearly there's a bottom-line dimension to that as well: more footfall makes the venue more viable and sustainable in the long term,' Dawson said.
There will be nine padel courts, which he said would be available to rent for a 'similar price' to the four current courts, which were recently increased to £30 an hour.
'This isn't about running down tennis, it's about diversifying the offer,' he added. 'Padel is exploding in popularity. It's a smaller racket, it's just an easier game to play for more people.
'The Olympic legacy evolves, it doesn't stand still. We need to respond to trends and that's what we're doing.'
A Lawn Tennis Association spokesman said: 'These plans are particularly disappointing as the LTA and Tennis Foundation invested half a million pounds in the original tennis facility and we understand the indoor tennis courts are heavily used.
'The data cited by LVRPA on tennis participation is incorrect. We will be engaging with the LVRPA and the operator GLL [Better] to encourage them to consider other options that can see both tennis and padel played on site.'
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