Private Tennis Courts in the UK: How Many Are There?

• By Sam Parton
• In Blog
• Aug 5, 2012

Private Tennis Courts in the UK: How Many Are There?

We've done a lot of research over the last few months to collect data for the number of tennis courts in the UK. This has been onerous to say the least, but an important exercise to expand our every-growing database of UK sports facilities.

However one thing really puzzled us, just how many private tennis courts are there in the UK? By this we mean, how many tennis courts in the UK are there which are owned by private individuals?

Stunning private tennis courts such as this tennis court Cornwall will soon be available to rent via matchtea.com

Well after foraging far and wide, to every crevasse of the internet, it seems that there isn't an obvious answer. So as part of our quest to provide the UK's largest sports facility database, it's our mission to find out.

Our initial rsearch led us to in the direction of the leafy county of Surrey and the amount of private tennis courts proved staggering. In Peaslake, a quaint, peaceful village a David Beckham long ball away from Guildford, we counted over 25 tennis courts. With a population of approximately 2000, that equates to 80 residents for every tennis court.

However, if you venture in to deepest Burnley on the outskirts of Manchester, you will find plenty of vandalised cars, but only one tennis court for the 50,000 residents. Therefore our current estimate for the number of private tennis courts in the UK stands at approximately 20,000, private being owned by individuals and technically not currently available to the public...

It's encouraging initial research which we're going to accelerate over the forthcoming weeks, so stay tuned for updates on this as we look to unearth where the UK's tennis courts are hiding and focus on bringing them to the masses.

By Sam Parton