PARC TAWE: Ninja Warrior venue could be replaced by six padel courts under new plans

One of Swansea’s best-known family activity venues could be replaced by courts for one of the country’s fastest-growing racket sports.

Plans have been lodged to turn the Ninja Warrior UK Adventure Park at Parc Tawe into a six-court indoor padel facility, in a move that would end the obstacle-course attraction’s four-year run at the retail park.

The venue is the large unit shared with Aldi, on the site of the former Toys R Us, facing the car park at the southern end of the park.

The application, submitted to Swansea Council by Pure Padel Clubs Ltd, would see the ground floor turned into five doubles courts and one singles court, with a new mezzanine level, changing rooms, showers, a reception and a café.

Ninja Warrior’s parent company confirmed it is reviewing the venue’s future. Burhill Group Ltd, which also runs the Bunkers! crazy golf, darts and ping-pong venue off Wind Street, said it had been talking to a padel operator but had not reached a decision.

Chief operating officer Stephen Brown said the company had engaged a UK padel operator to explore potential future uses for the site, and that a planning application had been submitted to the council.

He added that no final decision had been made, that Ninja Warrior Swansea continues to operate as normal until further notice, and that the company’s immediate priority was keeping staff informed.

The centre opened to considerable fanfare in 2022, modelled on the Ninja Warrior UK television game show, with an array of obstacles, tunnels and towers. Co-host and football pundit Chris Kamara attended the launch and praised the course as “as good as it gets”.

Padel is a racket sport that blends elements of tennis and squash, played on an enclosed court roughly a third of the size of a tennis court and surrounded by walls of glass and metal mesh. It is recognised by the Lawn Tennis Association, which has ambitions to grow the game across Britain.

The sport is spreading quickly across Swansea. Earlier this year the council unveiled proposals that included padel courts along the foreshore between the marina and Blackpill, among a wider vision for the bay.

Pure Padel says it struggled to find anywhere else in Swansea big enough. Padel courts need a lot of floor space and a high ceiling, and after searching commercial property listings in late June the operator concluded there was nowhere closer to the city centre that fit — leaving the Parc Tawe unit, it says, as its best option.

The company, which says it runs sites across England and one in Scotland, wants Wales to be its next move, with hopes of opening 30 venues within five years. It says its courts elsewhere are busy more than 90 per cent of the time, and that an indoor home means play carries on whatever the weather.

It says it would run a junior programme at weekends and hold women-only sessions and sessions for older players, with coaches trained in Spain — the country where the sport took off.

Parc Tawe rose on the filled-in North Dock in the late 1980s and was given a £15m makeover a decade ago — the overhaul that brought the UK’s very first Denny’s, the American diner chain, to Swansea, alongside the Odeon cinema and bowling alley that anchor the park today. It is now owned by regeneration company Centurion Group, whose wider plans for the city include the former Debenhams store in the centre.

The council is expected to decide on the plans later this year. Until then, Ninja Warrior stays open.