Another application to turn barns into padel courts near Spalding has been refused.
Gramaro Properties Ltd applied to build two courts for the rapidly-growing sport on Holbeach Road barns as well as converting another into an office.
The application was for the site of Bridge Farm, 450 metres east of the A16 McDonald’s roundabout.
However South Holland District Council has refused the application with officers saying it’s in open countryside and on land liable to flood.
Only last month the authority also refused an application for a purpose build padel and pickleball centre off Bourne Road for similar reasons.
The documents for the application state: “The architectural approach respects the character of the retained barn while introducing a contemporary, functional structure that reflects its intended sporting use.
“This scheme has been conceived not only to provide high-quality office space for a growing local business but also to create a venue that fosters community engagement through a sport of increasing popularity.
“By restoring and adapting the existing barns for office use and introducing a padel court as a complementary leisure facility, the scheme delivers both economic and social benefits to the local area and local businesses. It supports local business growth, creates jobs, and offers new recreational opportunities that encourage community wellbeing.”
The application would have required the bridge over Lord’s Drain to the site widening and a total of 24 parking spaces.
But planning officers have refused the application behind closed doors, despite a request from ward councillor
Rob Gibson that the decision be made in public at a Planning Committee meeting.
The report refusing the application stated: “The proposal would not be located in close proximity to the community it would serve’.
“The proposed Padel courts and leisure area would fundamentally conflict with the character of the area through the further intrusion of development into the countryside,” the report states. “The introduction of further development within this rural landscape would result in an increasingly urban edge of settlement reading of the location, tantamount to the erosion of the existing sense of place and the expansion of the perceived settlement.”
