Pure Padel aces plans to become UK's biggest operator

Ambitious and tenacious sports club operator, Pure Padel, has confirmed plans to operate 12 padel clubs by Christmas under its bold six-fold expansion plans. Since launching its debut club in Alderley Park in October 2023, it has already opened the North West’s first fully indoor padel club in Manchester city centre and begun work on two further clubs - Stockport and Darlington - both opening next month.

Cheshire head-quartered Pure Padel is continuing to expand at pace, having secured planning for another eight sites across the UK from Scotland to Surrey, where it will operate an impressive 55 courts, sky-rocketing its status to one of the largest clubs in the country.

The new clubs set to open in Q3 are planned for Moor Allerton in Yorkshire, Nottingham city centre and Lightwater in Surrey. Meanwhile, Q4 will see clubs launching in Solihull in the Midlands, Gosforth in Newcastle, York and Glasgow.

With a mix of indoor, canopied and outdoor clubs, Pure Padel’s rapid growth leans into the UK’s insatiable appetite for the accessible, fun and sociable racket sport. All courts will be available to book on a pay to play basis via the Playtomic app, which has amassed 1.4million users in Europe to date thanks to its ease of use.

Commenting on the club’s business strategy, Founder and Managing Director at Pure Padel, Sammy Arora, said: “Our model is intentionally diversified to mitigate risk in a relatively new and untested market. We’re combining indoor warehouse clubs (typically higher rent but lower capex and quicker to market as planning is often not required), large-canopy outdoor clubs (longer planning cycles, higher capex, but lower rent), and uncovered outdoor clubs (minimal capex and very low rent). We are also acquiring a mix of leasehold and freehold assets, giving the business additional long-term security and potential uplift in asset value.”

In addition, each site is carefully designed with social connection and community in mind. Clubs are fully staffed, feature licensed bars or cafés, pro shops, and offer expert coaching, creating a holistic padel experience and building loyal padel communities across the UK.

People have played a pivotal role to the group’s explosive growth too. Pure Padel’s recent appointment of Hayden Small as Head of Property has accelerated its site pipeline. With vast experience from his time at Powerleague. Small brings experience of site selection, planning and development, which are already proving vital to Pure Padel’s ability to secure prime sites at pace.

Arora said: “Bringing padel to people all over the UK is a key driver for us - it’s really quick to pick up and is a very sociable game to play, so we want to ensure that everyone can give it a go. Our pay to play model has been developed around that ethos, which we’ve combined with an agile development approach to building and creating new clubs from Scotland to Surrey and beyond.”

Identified as the flagship club for the north east of England, Gosforth Park will be home to eight state of the art indoor courts. Built in a former warehouse and owned by Pure Padel acquired on land purchased from Persimmon, the exquisite facility on Gosforth Business Park will cater to Newcastle’s vast business and student communities. As well as padel courts, the club will house a pro shop, cafė / bar, changing rooms, mezzanine viewing platform and co-working space to cater to contemporary working styles and the demand to blend work and play.

Arora added: “Gosforth Park will hopefully emulate the success of our Manchester club, which has been going from strength to strength since opening in September. The demand for mixed use sports facilities is enormous - people no longer save their leisure time for the evenings - they prefer to play padel in between meetings to break-up the day, which is why this model has been so popular. Often, players bring their laptops and catch up on work in our co-working space either side of having a game. It really suits people’s modern desire for flexible working.”

Providing clubs that cater to all-weather play is pivotal to Pure Padel’s plans and is a central part of its unique and scalable strategy.

Arora continued: “Indoor play and covered courts are in peak demand thanks to the changeable climate we enjoy in this country, and is the reason why this model has been so central to our expansion plans. It can be more tricky securing planning or sourcing locations for indoor clubs, but they’re definitely there to be found and the extra groundwork is paying off. Over the past two years we’ve built a trusted team of consultants, project managers, quantity surveyors, lawyers and architects, which has enabled us to deliver and scale at pace.”

He added: “Coming from an extremely entrepreneurial family means I have access to their valuable knowledge and I’m hugely grateful for that. 2025 is set to be our best year yet, but we’re setting our sights on even bigger growth for 2026 - it’s a truly exciting time!”