Changes to Padel Booking Rules effective today

Dear Members,

The email sent on July 2nd outlined a number of changes to the padel booking rules and charges and these become fully effective today. Can I ask all members booking Padel Courts to be familiar with the new rules, particularly around having all four players recorded on myCourts BEFORE their allotted time. Otherwise a “guest fee” will be charged for missing names.

Likewise, cancelling unwanted Courts 48 hours before the due time is an important part of the new rules. This will allow other members enough time to find other members to use the unwanted court.

The staff on reception have been briefed on the new rules and are there to help, particularly around a player stepping in to allow a match to take place, if that member is already down to play on the same day.

I would like to ask all members to be courteous to members of staff who are there to help you.

The changes are now in effect on August 1st. As a reminder:

Guest fees will be charged for any game where all four players have not been entered on the booking before the scheduled start time. This applies to all games played on or after August 1st, regardless of when the booking was originally made.

A £4.00 fee applies to bookings for all games to be played on or after August 1st. (This change is already in operation.) Members can transfer £1 to the member that booked the court through myCourts.

Full details of the revised arrangements can be found in the original email of July 2nd and also in the relevant section of the myCourts booking website.

A number of members commented that the original communication did not explain the reasons for these changes.

The revised booking rules are intended to make court access fairer by improving availability at times of consistently high demand. As with any change, we will monitor the impact and make further adjustments if needed.

The increase in the booking fee has two purposes:

Firstly, the previous 50p charge proved too low to encourage members to cancel courts they no longer needed, leading to unnecessary 'no-shows', and it did little to discourage speculative bookings.

Secondly, from our experience of operating Padel Courts, the original playing surfaces were exhausted within three years of usage. These were replaced at a cost of circa £40,000 and we must anticipate that the playing surfaces will need to be renewed again.

Thank you for your patience and for your continued support in helping us make the padel booking system work as fairly as possible for all members.

Tim Forsyth

Chairman

Solihull Arden Club

01/08/2026