Concerns about the noise disturbance to local residents of games of padel being played at a Harrogate gym have prompted councillors to reject plans for two courts.
North Yorkshire Council’s Harrogate and Knaresborough area planning committee this week voted unanimously to refuse a retrospective planning application for the outdoor courts and a social area already built at the David Lloyd Harrogate gym in Oakdale Place.
A previous application was rejected last September due to concerns over noise and the impact on local ecology.
To address these issues, the leisure company proposed mitigation measures, including four-metre acoustic barriers and upgraded “asymmetric” lighting designed to reduce spill into the nearby Oak Beck wildlife corridor.
But councillors were not happy the measures would reduce the disturbance to local residents.
They took the decision after hearing from Patrick Fitzgerald, chairman of the Oakbeck Valley Residents Association.
He told councillors it was “not credible” that the barrier would screen all residents from the noise.
“Residents will have to tolerate this continuous noise seven days a week and the tranquil nature of the Oakbeck Valley will be destroyed forever.”
He added:
“Last summer, this was a constant intrusion into our lives. We know what it’s like. On hot days, we couldn’t open the windows and dreaded coming home again to be greeted again by this noise.
“I don’t think anybody here would want permanent noise in their homes and garden every day for the rest of their life.”
Councillor Josie Caven, chair of the planning committee at Harrogate Town Council, also spoke out against the application at the meeting.
She said:
“While the proposal may provide physical and mental health benefits to its members, these are outweighed by the widespread harm to residential immunity, including noise, light pollution, and ecological disturbance.”
Committee member Councillor Peter Lacey said he accepted that the site of the padel courts was previously a tennis court.
But he added:
“I like to think that tennis is more of a gentile sport that you can sort of cope with in the background. Padei is this percussive and very different noise.
“The objection then that I would make is purely on noise. I suppose the easy thing, and it was suggested once, that if padel is so important to the business case and to the local community then stick it indoors.”
Councillor Hannah Goslow also voted against the application.
She said:
“It is the noise not just of the sport but of the social activity in this unusual kind of dipped bowl, shaped site with the houses surrounding and higher up.
“It will have a huge impact I believe on this residential amenity in this quiet area, and it’s the duration, the seven days of the week from early till late, that I find really upsetting.”
Councillors voted against the application despite planning officers recommending approval.
The proposal has divided opinion in the community, with the council receiving 175 letters of support and 34 objections.
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