i'm looking at my local flying clubs website and they need 250 hours P1 to be able to fly the pa-28
My guess would be that the club don't own the PA28 and it is a requirement on the insurance of whoever leases the A/C to the club. My local club used to have a similar but reverse situation where a PA28 was available for ab-initio training but the 172 wasn't.
first officer on 737's (admittedly with an atpl) with a grand total of 278 hrs in his logbook
ATPL issue still requires 1500 hours