A cricket or sports pavilion on a village green

Building a pavilion on a registered town or village green needs two consents from two different bodies, and the planning permission is the easier of the two. Section 38 of the Commons Act 2006 prohibits works on registered green land without the consent of the appropriate national authority, and a pavilion is unambiguously works. A parish council or cricket club that obtains planning permission and starts digging has committed an offence, whatever the planning file says.

The two processes have different tests, different decision-makers and different timescales. Understanding that from the start is most of the battle, because the commonest failure is a club that raises the money, gets permission, and then discovers that the green consent takes another year.

Registered green status and what it prevents

A town or village green is land registered as such, originally under the commons registration legislation of 1965 and now under the Commons Act 2006. Registration can arise from historic allotment of the land, from custom, or from an application based on twenty years of use by local inhabitants for lawful sports and pastimes.

Once registered, the land carries protections that have nothing to do with planning. Victorian statutes make it an offence to injure a green or to interfere with its use and enjoyment, and those provisions are still in force. Section 38 of the 2006 Act adds a modern consent requirement covering works that prevent or impede access, and resurfacing works.

Check the register before anything else. The commons registration authority, usually the county or unitary council, holds the register of town and village greens, and the entry will identify the land, the registration date and any rights recorded over it. Do not rely on local assumption. Land called a green in the village is not necessarily a registered green, and land nobody calls a green sometimes is.

Consent for works under the Commons Act 2006

An application under section 38 goes to the national authority and is administered through the Planning Inspectorate in England. It is a separate application with its own form, its own publicity requirements and its own fee arrangements.

The matters the decision-maker must consider are set out in the Act: the interests of persons having rights in relation to the land, the interests of the neighbourhood, the public interest, and any other relevant matter. The public interest expressly includes nature conservation, conservation of the landscape, protection of public rights of access, and archaeological remains and features of historic interest.

That list shapes the application. A pavilion argued purely on the needs of the cricket club will struggle. The same pavilion argued on the basis that it keeps organised sport on the green, that it occupies a corner already used for a store, that access is unaffected and that the grassland of nature conservation value is left untouched, is a different proposition.

Objections are common and are taken seriously. Where there are objections that are not withdrawn, the application may be determined on the papers or after a hearing or inquiry, and the timetable lengthens accordingly.

Planning permission alongside that consent

The pavilion is a building, so planning permission is needed in the ordinary way. Current guidance indicates that planning permission is normally obtained before the section 38 application is made, which makes sense because the green consent decision needs to know exactly what is proposed. Confirm the current sequencing guidance before committing to a programme.

Expect the planning application to raise the following. The effect on the openness and character of the green, which is a design and landscape question rather than a technical one. Whether the site is designated as Local Green Space or protected open space in the local plan, since both carry strong policy protection. The loss of any playing field area, which brings the sports national body in as a statutory consultee on development affecting playing fields. And ecology, drainage, access and parking.

A short, well-argued planning statement that addresses the openness point head on tends to work better than one that treats the pavilion as a minor structure. Officers and parish councillors both know that a building on a green is a permanent change to a protected open space.

Siting, scale and the effect on the open character

The design decisions that make these applications succeed are consistent.

• Site the building at the edge, against an existing boundary, hedge or group of trees, rather than in the open middle ground.
• Keep the footprint to what the use needs. Changing rooms, a store, a kitchen and a covered viewing area is a different building from a function hall with a bar.
• Single storey, low eaves, a simple pitched form and materials that read as a rural building rather than as a sports facility.
• Reuse an existing hardstanding or an existing structure's footprint if one exists, because replacing is easier to justify than adding.
• Avoid high fencing, floodlighting and permanent barriers, each of which engages the access protections directly.

An illustrative example of the weight these points carry. A pavilion of around 100 square metres tucked into the hedge line in a corner of a green, replacing a tin store, with no fencing and no lighting, raises very different questions from a 250 square metre building with a car park in the centre of the same green. The figures are illustrative, and the real test is the effect on access and openness.

Drainage where there is no mains connection

Village greens rarely have a sewer. That makes foul drainage one of the first things to resolve, not one of the last.

Where no mains connection is available, the options are a package treatment plant or a septic tank discharging to a drainage field, operating under the general binding rules for small sewage discharges, or an environmental permit where the rules cannot be met. The rules include requirements about the discharge point, the distance from watercourses and abstraction points, and the design and maintenance of the system. A discharge to a surface water body from a septic tank is not permitted under those rules.

Ground conditions decide feasibility. A drainage field needs a percolation test and enough space at an adequate distance from the building, the boundary and any water feature, and on a clay green the test may fail. A sealed cesspool with tanker emptying is the fallback and carries a running cost the club has to budget for.

Set this out in a foul sewage assessment with the percolation test results, the system type and the maintenance arrangements. The same discipline applies to any rural scheme needing its own water infrastructure, as it does for a farm reservoir or irrigation lagoon.

Parking, access and vehicle crossing of the green

Vehicle access is where the two consent regimes collide most directly. Driving across a green, forming a track, laying hardstanding or installing a gate are all works or interferences that engage section 38 and the older offences, even where the planning authority is content.

Three workable approaches. Use an existing lawful access and do not extend it. Provide parking off the green entirely, on adjoining land, with a short pedestrian route. Or apply for consent for a defined access with a reinforced grass surface rather than a bound one, which is easier to justify because it keeps the appearance and the access rights intact.

Match-day parking on the verge is a practical reality and a planning answer in its own right. A travel and parking statement describing the peak event, the number of vehicles and where they will go is better evidence than a drawing showing six spaces that nobody will use.

Ecology and the grassland habitat

Old greens are often the last unimproved grassland in a parish, and the sward may hold species that have disappeared from the surrounding farmland, including waxcap fungi that depend on long-undisturbed turf.

Commission a preliminary ecological appraisal early, in the survey season, and expect it to influence the siting more than the design. Where the appraisal identifies priority grassland, the answer is usually to put the building on the most modified ground available, which is often the corner that already has a store or a worn entrance. Councils normally expect a suitably qualified ecologist for this work.

Biodiversity net gain requirements apply to most development, and a green is an unusual case because the baseline can be high. That makes on-site gain harder, not easier, which is another reason to keep the footprint small and to look at the condition of the retained sward as part of the proposal.

Running both applications in sequence

A realistic programme for a club or parish council:

1. Check the register of town and village greens and establish ownership and any recorded rights.
2. Commission the ecological appraisal and the percolation test.
3. Design to a small footprint at the edge, and consult the parish and the users informally.
4. Submit and obtain planning permission.
5. Apply for section 38 consent, with the planning permission and the drawings, and address the statutory matters directly.
6. Programme construction after both consents are in force.

Allow considerably longer than the eight week planning target suggests. Two consents, two publicity periods and a possible hearing on the green application can take well over a year. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which supporting documents a community building application is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Commons and greens law is technical, so check the position with the commons registration authority, your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.