Five-a-side footballers in Wandsworth have accused the council of using “spurious” safety concerns to close their pitch at Wandle Recreation Centre — clearing the way for four padel courts to be built on the same ground.
The row centres on pitch 5, a floodlit artificial surface at the centre. Wandsworth Council says the pitch was shut to football bookings after hazards were found around the playing area, including a lack of run-off space. In a letter backing the padel scheme, the council said options to make the pitch safe had been “explored but these were deemed unviable”, and that “the decision was taken to close the pitch to football bookings”.
Planning documents paint a picture of a tight, hemmed-in pitch. The space behind each goal is “approximately 1.5 metres”, with none at either side, and a low brick wall runs around three edges, according to the planning statement submitted by Places for People.
Places for People operates the centre for the council under a ten-year contract and would build the four padel courts itself. The company was already drawing up plans for padel at the site, and the council’s Culture and Leisure team has told planners it “fully supports this proposal”. If the scheme is approved, construction could start in November and be finished by January.
The players who use the pitch are not convinced. One footballer said his sports group only learned about the padel proposal after the deadline for public comments — 2 September — had passed. He dismissed the safety justification as “spurious”, and players have since lodged formal objections to the scheme.
Places for People says it has stopped taking new football bookings for pitch 5 and is moving existing fixtures to the centre’s four other artificial pitches.
What is far less clear is whether football will get anything back. The council says it wants a replacement pitch built elsewhere on the site through “a subsequent Planning application”, but no details have emerged and no timetable has been set. Places for People’s own planning statement is explicit that the padel scheme “is not dependent on that further proposal”, adding only that a new pitch “will be explored through the centre’s capital investment and transformation project”.
Adding to players’ suspicions is the fact that padel on pitch 5 is not a new idea. The council’s letter notes that Places for People had previously proposed padel courts there during negotiations for its new operating contract, which began on 1 October 2025.
There is, at least, some grounding for the safety argument. On 20 September 2025, a 21-year-old footballer died after striking a concrete wall during a non-league match at Wingate & Finchley’s ground in Finchley, north London — an incident cited in Places for People’s planning statement. The council’s letter says the Football Foundation “is undertaking a review of all their funded facilities” and that the council itself “also undertook a review of its facilities”. The council has not said when pitch 5 was assessed, or when the decision to close it was taken.
No decision on the padel scheme has been announced. The target date was 28 September, but the council is in the middle of moving to a new planning system, and application 2026/2802 was still listed as “registered” on 29 September, with online comments paused. The council says comments can still be emailed to planning@wandsworth.gov.uk during the changeover and will be logged and considered by the case officer, Ben Hayter, on 020 8871 8319.
Approached this week, Wandsworth Council had not responded to questions. Places for People said it was looking into them, but had yet to reply.
The row is the latest sign of padel’s rapid spread across London. The enclosed, glass-walled racket game — a cross between tennis and squash — has seen new courts open in parks, retail parks and converted industrial buildings across the capital in recent years, with demand for court time often outstripping supply. Operators see disused or underused sports space as natural sites for conversion, putting padel in direct competition with football for room — and the game now joins a busy grassroots sport scene across the capital, from mass-participation running events to new cycling festivals.
For now, footballers displaced from pitch 5 are being offered slots on the centre’s four remaining artificial pitches. Anyone wanting to comment on the padel scheme can email planning@wandsworth.gov.uk quoting application 2026/2802. The ward councillors for Wandsworth Town are Michelle Cook (Labour), Sarah Davies (Labour) and Noel Dube (Conservative).
The dispute is the latest pressure point for a council already making headlines over its finances — from a proposed near-doubling of council tax to a plan to retender the borough’s £5.2m libraries contract in a bid for savings.
