MUMBLES: Campaign group’s alternative plan for the old tennis courts swaps the car park for a lido
A lido and a games court instead of a car park: that is what a Mumbles campaign group wants on the old seafront tennis courts.
Mumbles Action Group, which has around 4,800 members on Facebook, has shared its own plan for the site between the Oyster House and Oystermouth Bowls Club.
It keeps the padel courts in the council’s plans, but puts an outdoor pool and a multi-use games area, a fenced court for sports like basketball and netball, where the council would bring back around 20 parking spaces.
The council’s plan: three padel courts and a car park, with the bowling green untouched (Image: Swansea Council)Michael Eames, an administrator of the group, said the site was “a community space and should remain so”.
Car parks do not bring visitors, he argues. “Mumbles is a tourist destination not a car park,” he said.
Lido and games court: ‘Why can’t we have the best in Mumbles?’
In a post to the group, he wrote that “swimmers would love it, kids would be blown away” and that it would “enhance the area”.
An AI-generated image shared by Mumbles Action Group showing a lido and games court on the site (Image: Mumbles Action Group)He also predicted the council’s answer: “Oooooerrrr we got no money” or “Ooooerrr it will be too expensive”.
He wants the council to “get some quotes together, do some surveys, see what grants are available”. “Why can’t we have the best in Mumbles, we pay for it!” he wrote.
He puts what Mumbles pays the council in parking charges alone at around £5m.
Mumbles tennis courts: residents say the site keeps shrinking
The council’s own sign on the fence names the site Mumbles Gardens, and records that the tennis courts were paid for by Mumbles Community Council.
Members of the group say there were once four tennis courts on the site, and that one was lost to the neighbouring Oyster Wharf development.
Under the council’s plan, what is left would be split between three padel courts and the car park. Some residents worry that land given over to parking will never come back.
Others fear Langland could be next. Last year the council offered three under-used tennis courts there for redevelopment on a long lease.
Mr Eames says Oyster Wharf took 58 parking spaces, the M&S site another 76 potential spaces and the new prom another 18. “Now we turn public community spaces into car parks… that’s madness!” he wrote.
Not everyone in Mumbles Action Group is convinced
Some members said the village’s parking problem had to be solved first, and one called the idea a waste of council tax money that should be spent elsewhere in Swansea.
Others questioned the picture itself. It was made with an AI tool, and shows basketball hoops on a court painted in padel colours.
Mr Eames accepts a seawater lido would be “out of the question” without the water being pumped in, filtered, cleaned and monitored.
A lido appears in the Civic Centre plans only as a possible future phase. Blackpill Lido, the bay’s existing outdoor pool, is a wide, shallow pool best loved by young children.
Swansea Council’s plan: three padel courts and the parking back
The council says padel was the sport most people named when it asked Mumbles in January last year what should replace the tennis courts.
Bringing back the parking lost to the sea defence works was a promise it made before the work started.
Cllr Andrew Stevens, cabinet member for environment and infrastructure, said the plans showed “we have listened carefully to what our communities want”.
The application will go before the council’s own planning committee. No date had been set when it was announced last week.
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
MUMBLES: Padel courts to replace the old seafront tennis courts, and the car park is coming back
The council’s own plan for the site.
Swansea Council seeking local view on the future of a key Mumbles location
The January 2025 consultation on what should replace the tennis courts.
Langland Bay tennis court site may be redeveloped to include new leisure facilities
The council’s offer of three Langland courts on a long lease.
SWANSEA: Civic Centre plans finally go in, and the small print tells its own story
Where the lido stands in the Civic Centre plans.