Andrew Clark interview: UK leisure operator GLL chief on taking padel to a wider audience

Andrew Clark, head of sport and aquatics at the UK leisure operator and social enterprise GLL, is leading the rollout of new padel facilities as it looks to meet the growing demand across the country. He speaks to Padel Business Magazine about the desire to offer padel that is affordable and accessible.

It is now over 18 months since GLL – the largest UK-based charitable social enterprise delivering leisure, health and community services – launched a partnership with padel courts operator Game4Padel aimed at taking the sport to new parts of the country.

GLL, which operates under the consumer-facing brand Better, runs 240 public sports and leisure facilities, 120 libraries, 10 children’s centres and five adventure playgrounds in partnership with 50 local councils, public agencies and sporting organisations. Its facilities attract over 57 million visitors a year and have more than 700,000 members.

The breadth of its reach and scale of its operations suggest it could have a big part to play amid the growing efforts in the UK to ensure padel is available beyond premium locations, 5-star hotels or health clubs.

Andrew Clark, head of sport and aquatics at GLL, says padel offers significant opportunities for the group to take it to a wider demographic as demand for the sport takes off across the country.

“As an organisation we’re trying to get as many people active as possible, and we see our role as enabling people to access facilities on an affordable basis, where you don't have to be a member, you can just turn up and play or book a court or gym, and it’s fully accessible wherever possible,” he explains.

“We’re trying to drive change by highlighting the physical, social and mental well-being benefits of playing sport and doing physical activity, and padel has been a good addition to our customer offer.”

Using temporary courts to test the market

Through its partnership with Game4Padel, GLL has so far added padel to four facilities, each with two courts. Three of the sites are in or just outside London, at Coldharbour Leisure Centre in Greenwich, Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in South London, and Gosling Sports Park in Welwyn Garden City, just north of the capital. The fourth site is at West View Leisure Centre in Preston in the north west of England.

In Welwyn Garden City, the courts are indoors, while at Crystal Palace and Greenwich two outdoor tennis centres have been converted, and in Preston an old astroturf pitch was replaced.

The average cost per court per hour ranges from £20 at the Preston site to £40 at Welwyn Garden City, with the cost at Greenwich £24 and Crystal Palace £36. All centres also have off-peak discounted pricing.

“Our initial phase has been putting some temporary courts into venues to test the water out,” says Clark, and he reveals that after a particularly busy summer across each of the sites, the average utilisation rate across the facilities is now around 45% on average, rising to 75% at weekends.

“We’re also seeing some really good financial numbers coming through in comparison to what we had in those spaces previously,” he adds.

“One of our roles is getting people to discover the sport and come across it for the first time and encourage them to play it. We've converted people from doing other racquet sports or other activities into doing padel. People that were just coming in and playing five-a-side football are now playing padel, for example.”

Building a padel community and breaking down barriers

Clark has also been encouraged by the community aspect of the sport, which he stresses forms a further important aspect of GLL’s mission.

“We’re trying to develop and enhance the communities we work in, so when people come to our facilities, we want them to feel like they belong there, and feel part of something. And with padel being such an easy and fun sport to play, we're really starting to see that community emerge around those courts.”

He says this has partly been achieved by providing coaching, including free introductory sessions at open days, as well as social sessions charged at an affordable price.

“So we are breaking down some of the barriers that might exist to playing or accessing the sport.”

Preston site taking padel to a new audience 

Clark says the site in Preston in particular highlights what GLL and Game4Padel are trying to achieve through their partnership.

“It was a case of asking what would padel do if we stuck it somewhere that isn't a natural area for the sport to be introduced in, where the site for the courts was in a place where regular anti-social behaviour had previously been an issue.

“So the investment from the partnership has helped clear up that area, and it's helped take the sport to a completely different audience. There's a large Asian community in the area, and we’re getting a number of local  community groups involved coming along and playing.”

Preston North End football club – whose Deepdale stadium is nearby – are also supporting the facility, with some of their players using the courts after helping to promote the site when it launched. 

In addition, GLL and Game4Padel are working with coaching provider We Do Tennis to support the delivery of coaching and introductory sessions at the site, which Clark says is “really helping to drive numbers.”

He reveals that GLL has now secured planning permission to build three permanent courts with canopies at the facility. “It has been a journey,” he says. “But this is what I like about the partnership with Game4Padel – they weren't afraid to take on that challenge and agreed if we're going to make padel work in the UK, it can't just be in all the same areas. We've got to take the sport to the people, and so they weren't afraid to make that investment.”

Preparing to make padel investments with local authorities 

Clark says the partnership with Game4Padel – which includes a profit share agreement – has allowed GLL to discover how padel can work at some of its facilities, and says it is now part of its future thinking for the development of its centres.

“We're at the stage now where we're looking at investment plans for centres and looking at how we are going to bring padel in,” he explains. “And it will probably be within the next six months that we'll be investing in partnership with local authorities in some facilities and putting padel in directly.

“We're still committed to the partnership with Game4Padel, but due to the nature of local authority leisure contracts, the short length of contract can be a challenge for return on investment and therefore we will look at how we can work in different ways together when local authorities look to make their own investments.”

Clark anticipates the total number of padel courts at GLL facilities will treble, to at least 24 by the end of 2025, and reveals that discussions are underway over the use of two more sites in and around London which would each feature between four and six courts.

He adds that GLL is also preparing to open up new padel facilities in south west England, with plans underway to build at least four courts at the Odd Down Sports Ground in Bath, where GLL is waiting for the local authority to submit planning permission, as well as exploring potential opportunities in Swindon and, across the border into Wales, Cardiff.

Warning signs from explosion of trampoline parks

As he maps out GLL’s plans to open more padel sites, Clark is enthusiastic about the sport’s potential in the UK. “Padel is not only a fun sport to play – compared with a five-hour round of golf it can also give you time to be active and socialise without it eating up too much of your time,” he observes.

However, drawing from almost 24 years of experience with GLL, he also suggests that as the expansion of the sport begins to accelerate across the country, it may be wise to heed the warnings from other similar developments, such as the surge in openings of trampoline parks a decade ago.

“There was a similar phase ten years ago when everyone wanted to build their own trampoline park, and there was a lot of private investment going in,” he reflects.

“We looked at our estate and put some in where we thought they would get some traction and we've seen some good success off the back of those, but some of the private investments have just disappeared.

“And now we’re seeing padel pop up here, there and everywhere. Private investors are grabbing cheap land, and they're trying to make it work in places that are not necessarily at the heart of the community. It will be interesting to see how long they last, compared to the ones that have got more to it than just a single activity.”

He concludes: “I think there can be an oversaturation, as we’ve seen with padel in Sweden, but equally I think having the supply is crucial to making sure the sport has legs and can last, so it needs constant reinvestment. If people are just going to stick courts in and take the money and run it's not going to last, but if there are good investments being made and people try to continually improve the offer and build that community, then I think it can be sustainable.”

Not yet a PBM subscriber? Sign up here for exclusive weekly insights into the padel industry, delivered directly to your inbox