New ten-court padel club to open at University of Surrey

The University of Surrey has unveiled plans for a new premium padel facility with ten covered courts to be installed at its Surrey Sports Park (SSP) next year.

The site, which is to be built by UK operator PadelStars and is subject to planning permission, would become the biggest padel court facility in the UK higher education sector.  

Based in the town of Guildford, around 40km south west of London, SSP sits on the University of Surrey’s Manor Park campus.

The new facility would be the largest padel centre in Surrey and the first of its kind in the Guildford area. Plans for the proposed site include a show court for elite competition, as well as a large clubhouse, cafe, bar, extensive social area, and retail offering.

The move is set to provide a major boost to the expansion of padel in the UK’s higher education sector, which has been identified as a key area of growth for the sport in the country.

At present, most UK universities with padel teams or clubs are using external facilities, with only the University of Cambridge and Plymouth Marjon University having their own permanent courts on site at present.

In March 2025, Soul Padel opened two new temporary courts on campus at Loughborough University, and a growing number of universities are looking at how to embed padel into their sports offering.

The National Universities Padel League (NUPL) currently has ten participating universities, while the inaugural Universities National Championships, organised by UK Padel and held at Rocket Padel Bristol in February 2025, was the biggest student padel tournament so far in the UK, with 143 students competing.

Twelve universities took part, with 37 teams: 20 mens, eight womens and nine mixed. The University of Nottingham won the mens competition, with Cardiff University winning the womens event and Cardiff Metropolitan University the mixed competition. 

Commenting on the plans for the new site at Surrey Sports Park, its director of sport Georgina Agnies said: “Not only will our SSP members have access to top-tier courts, but students, staff at the university, and local residents can also enjoy affordable, high-quality facilities.”

Andy Knee, CEO of PadelStars, added: “Surrey Sports Park is a great partner for us: with a very large number of students on-site, many thousands of members, a broad multi-sport offer and a really progressive team of people driving SSP forward, we know that together we will create an incredibly vibrant home for padel in Guildford and beyond.”

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