Flintshire planners green light The Padel Club’s nine-court site close to Chester
Flintshire County Council has approved a padel club at Minerva House, Minerva Avenue, Sealand, a large industrial unit that has been empty since around May 2024.
The Padel Club, which operates seven venues across England, will convert the existing building to accommodate seven indoor courts, with two further outdoor courts to be built in an area currently used for storage.
No alterations are proposed to the exterior of the building.
The facility will include changing rooms, a cafe, a reception area, a bar and lounge, and office space.
Up to 25 full-time equivalent jobs are expected to be created.
The club will operate from 6am to 11pm every day of the week, including bank holidays.
Fifty car parking spaces are proposed on site.
Padel is a racquet sport played in doubles on an enclosed glass and mesh court, roughly a third of the size of a tennis court.
It is often described as sitting somewhere between tennis and squash and is widely regarded as one of the fastest-growing sports in Europe.
Minerva House sits within Chester West Business Park and carries a Chester CH1 postcode, but the site falls entirely within Flintshire County Council’s boundary in Sealand.
Flintshire’s Enterprise and Regeneration department told planning officers that Minerva House had attracted limited commercial interest, and raised no objection to the padel use on the basis it would bring further employment opportunities.
[Photo: thepadelclub.co.uk/club/chester]
A planning policy compliance statement submitted with the application said the building had been on the market for more than 18 months with no serious offers from industrial or storage tenants, due in part to a substation in the service yard and a single level-access point into the building.
The applicant’s statement said The Padel Club was prepared to take a 15-year lease on a building that had been vacant throughout that period.
One neighbouring occupier raised concerns about parking availability on Minerva Avenue.
Flintshire’s highways team said it had no objection to the development, and noted that the section of road referenced was not adopted public highway, meaning there is no mechanism to introduce parking restrictions there.
Planning conditions attached to the permission require details of external lighting for the outdoor courts to be submitted for separate council approval before those courts open.
As part of the approval, the applicant must also install bat and bird boxes on the site and remove an invasive plant species from the northern boundary, replacing it with native scrub.
Before the Sealand site could be approved, planners required the applicant to show that no town centre location could work instead.
Seventeen sites were assessed across seven centres including Connah’s Quay, Queensferry, Shotton and Buckley, and all were ruled out.
Padel courts need a ceiling height of at least eight metres and a large open floor plan, which town centre buildings could not provide.
The Padel Club’s existing venues include sites in Wilmslow, Trafford and Gloucester.
Check live fuel prices near you before you set off.
Spotted something? Got a story? Email news (@) deeside.com
NEW: Add Deeside.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Latest News
