Plans to turn shed into pickleball site refused

Pickleball Central UK submitted proposals to convert a former agricultural building into courts on Lower Cound Farm

Plans have been refused to turn a former potato storage shed into a centre for pickleball - a tennis-style game that also incorporates elements of badminton.

Shropshire-based Pickleball Central UK submitted proposals to convert the former agricultural building into courts on Lower Cound Farm, between Cross Houses and Cressage on the A458.

The company has said the facilities it currently rents, at Shrewsbury Sports Village, are too over-subscribed to allow its top-class members to train for international tournaments, adding it plans to smooth out and paint the concrete floors of the farm building to create two new courts for coaching sessions.

However, the county council refused permission for the scheme over concerns about increased traffic.

Shropshire Council said traffic using the access road to Lower Cound Farm would affect the flow of traffic on the A458 between Cross Houses and Cressage

Proposals had included an indicative timetable for sessions, showing that about nine would take place each week, resulting in about 35 two-way traffic movements at the site.

“The proposals will see an overall shift to a lighter profile of traffic movements compared to the extant agricultural use, with the proposed movements occurring outside of peak network hours," planners noted.

They added: "Accordingly, it is considered that the proposed use can be accommodated on the site without any detriment to the operational capacity and safety of the adjoining highway network."

But Shropshire Council’s highways team disagreed, and said the development could result in an intensification of what they described as a “substandard access” to the site via the existing single track drive.