Oakley Court Hotel tries again for set of new sports courts

Oakley Court Hotel has made another stab at gaining council permission to build a range of new sports facilities.

The four-star hotel in Windsor Road, Water Oakley, has been involved in an ongoing battle to expand its sports offering to compete with rival high-end hotels in the region.

In January, plans for a new outdoor swimming pool and padel courts were refused by the Royal Borough, whose planning team cited concerns over the impact on the greenbelt.

The applicants have now come forward for another bite at the apple. As before, they are still proposing to build several new courts.

But this time, applicants Vinyl Space Limited are floating three different applications with three different options, in the hopes that one of these will be acceptable to the council.

Option one is for seven courts – four padel courts, two pickleball courts and one tennis court, making about 2,770sqm of development.

Option two knocks off the tennis court, covering 2,100sqm, while option three is just the padel courts and covers 1,910sqm.

These would be available to use for local school/charity/community events, with the applicant agreeing to racquet sport ‘open days’ to encourage this.

At present, the only sports amenity facilities at the hotel are the two existing tennis courts. These are ‘heavily oversubscribed, particularly in the warmer months.’

The courts are planned for the hotel gardens adjacent to the existing tennis courts, on an area formerly home to part of the hotel’s golf course. It currently houses a large inflatable.

Courts will be in the form of an uncovered astroturf area, with ‘lightweight fencing’ surrounding them.

These proposals have been revised in light of the comments received from officers in relation to the previously refused scheme.

The council did not accept amendments to the previous proposals – and despite ‘extensive’ discussions, it has been ‘difficult to reach a clear agreement as to what would be acceptable at the site.’

This time around, the area for each the court schemes has been ‘substantially reduced’ from what was proposed before.

Option one is 26 per cent smaller than pervious plans; option two is 44 per cent smaller and option three is 48 per cent smaller.

“Whilst an increase in activity is expected in this area of the site, this part has historically been used for leisure/sports facilities … and currently the land is underutilised by the hotel,” claimed Vinyl Space Limited

“In comparison to the refused scheme, the proposals would not create a sprawl of courts on the land.”

There is also a separate planning application for another outdoor pool scheme, which has seen ‘generally positive comments’ during pre-application advice (25/00410/FULL).

Addressing greenbelt concerns, the applicants argue that since its is offering outdoor sport provision, plans would ‘clearly’ fall within ‘appropriate’ development of the greenbelt.

In terms of impacting the openness of the greenbelt, this scheme comprises uncovered racquet sport courts with transparent enclosures or no enclosures, they said.

The scaling back of the plans should also help alleviate some of the greenbelt concerns, the applicants feel.

Even if these aspects fail to assuage council concerns, the applicants nonetheless believe the proposals meet the ‘very special circumstances’ needed to justify building on the greenbelt.

For one reason, the scheme will promote active, healthy lifestyles – one possible avenue of justification, when it comes to VSCs.

To see all documents, enter reference 25/00656/FULL into the Borough’s online planning portal.