Squash court planning trends
Councils received 16 squash court applications in the year to September 2026. The squash court planning index stands at 59, 41% below its 2016 share.
Squash court applications since 2016
Squash court applications in every 10,000 planning applications, over the 12 months to each month
How this is measuredWell below 2016
Squash courts took their largest share of applications in 2016. In the year to September 2026 the share was 40% lower than three years earlier. The South East had 26 of the 63 applications in 2023 to 2025, more than twice the UK share.
Fewer players, fewer applications
Sport England's Active Lives survey, reported by Squash Player Magazine, counted 287,000 adults playing regularly in the year to November 2024, against 425,600 in 2015/16. The fall in applications coincides with that decline. Recent cases include courts converted into a home and a fitness suite.
Q3 2026 against a year earlier
Councils received 4 squash court applications in Q3 2026, too few to compare their share with a year earlier.
Squash court applications each quarter
4 in Q3 2026, against 9 a year earlier.
Out of every 10,000 applications
As a share of every application: 0.4 in every 10,000 in Q3 2026, against 0.8 a year earlier.
Latest squash court applications
- 171 Castle Street Portchester Fareham Conversion Of The Old Squash Court Into A One Bedroom Dwelling, Provision Of Parking And The Definition Of Separate Curtilages For The New Dwelling And St Vincent Cottage.
- 171 Castle Street Portchester Fareham Conversion Of The Squash Court Into A One Bedroom Dwelling, Provision Of Parking And The Definition Of Separate Curtilages For The One Bedroom Dwelling And St Vincent Cottage.
- Lands within the Canal Basin North Car Park, the former DfI Roads Strabane Section Office (Elmview, 6 Derry Road), Canal Link and part of the Canal Basin (Dock Street) Car Park, Strabane Construction of a new leisure centre comprising a 25m swimming pool, training pool, leisure water area with viewing gallery, wellness spa and health suite, fitness suite, spin studio, yoga studio, multi-purpose studios, squash court, café, changing facilities (including Changing Places provision), staff accommodation, plant areas and a rooftop plant compound. The development also includes the realignment of Canal Link and associated alterations to the existing road network, footways and pedestrian crossings, reconfiguration of existing car parking, provision of 46 car parking spaces (including accessible and electric vehicle charging spaces), drop-off and loading areas, site clearance, hard and soft landscaping, drainage infrastructure and associated site works.
- 89 - 91 Pall Mall London Installation of glass safety balustrades around the existing squash court area.
- Collegiate School Bell Hill Bristol Conversion of an existing Squash Courts to a Fitness Suite, with internal alterations to include a mezzanine deck. External alterations include addition of 1no glazing and 1no double leaf door with external grading works for a level threshold, and 6no. new vents associated with proposed ventilation.
- Pendower Endwood Drive Little Aston Sutton Coldfield Staffordshire Front and rear extensons, conversion of existing squash court and swimming pool into a games room, spa/yoga, and ancillary accommodation above,the insertion of a glazed feature roof over the yoga room, landscaping, and all associated works
Questions
How many squash court planning applications are there in the UK?
Councils have received 259 since January 2016, 16 of them in the 12 months to September 2026. Their share peaked in the 12 months to February 2017.
Which councils get the most squash court applications?
Cambridge, Dorset and Wiltshire have received the most since 2016.
Are squash court applications rising or falling?
Falling. Squash courts took their largest share of applications in 2016, and in the 12 months to September 2026 the share was 40% lower than three years earlier. The squash court planning index stands at 59, 41% below its 2016 share.
Are squash courts closing in the UK?
In England, participation has fallen: Sport England's Active Lives survey counted 287,000 regular adult players in the year to November 2024, against 425,600 in 2015/16. Since 2020, English courts can often become a gym or office without an application, so many closures need no application.
About Plota
Plota is the UK's most visited planning search, according to Similarweb. It shows every new planning application from every UK council, read daily from 390 planning registers, with past applications back to 2016 from more than 420 registers, including those of councils since merged. It also covers planning committee decisions, HMO licences and premises licences.
How this is measured
What needs an application
Since September 2020 indoor sport has sat in Class E (the use class covering shops, cafes, offices, gyms and similar town-centre uses) in England, so courts turned into a gym, office or clinic often need no application.
Methodology
- What is counted: planning applications to UK councils whose description names squash courts or a close variant of the words, by the date each council received them. These are planning applications, not completed schemes; the largest energy and infrastructure projects are consented nationally rather than by councils, so they sit outside these counts.
- How matches are checked: we read the 200 most recent squash court applications and 20 from every year since 2016 to confirm each one belongs.
- Topic counts leave out, by design, works to trees and applications that only discharge conditions, amend an earlier permission or approve reserved matters, which follow a scheme already counted. Everything else is counted.
- A share is the number out of every 10,000 applications over the previous 12 months. Each topic is a number in every 10,000 planning applications, so trends compare when overall planning activity changes; the share still moves when either the topic's count or the total does. The squash court planning index sets the 2016 share at 100, so 200 means twice as common as in 2016.
- Source: the planning registers of every UK council, January 2016 to September 2026, read on 9 November 2026.
- Planning is seasonal, so each quarter is compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Year on year: each topic's and theme's share of all applications in Q3 2026, against Q3 2025, at every council we hold. A share is the number in every 10,000 applications. Shares compare across councils and years; raw counts do not.
- Left out of the topic shares: Birmingham's applications from June to September 2026: a validation backlog at the council since June 2026: of 685 reference numbers it issued in September, its register lists 288. The same months a year earlier are left out too, so every comparison covers the same councils.
- Download the data (CSV): every topic and theme, each quarter since 2016.
Sources
- Active Lives participation: 287,000 regular adult squash players in the year to November 2024, against 425,600 in 2015/16 squashplayermag.com
- Class E, in force from 1 September 2020 in England only, includes indoor sport, recreation or fitness legislation.gov.uk