Playing fields, Sport England and statutory consultation

If any part of your site has been a playing field in the last five years, Sport England has to be consulted, and if it objects and the authority still wants to approve, the application will normally have to be referred to the Secretary of State. That combination makes playing field development consultation one of the few areas where a single statutory consultee can effectively determine a programme. The way through is to engage before the application, and to evidence your case against the specific policy exception you are relying on rather than arguing in general terms about need for housing.

When Sport England must be consulted

The duty sits in the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015. Local planning authorities must consult Sport England on development that is likely to prejudice the use, or lead to the loss of use, of land being used as a playing field, on land last used as a playing field within the previous five years that remains undeveloped, and on land allocated for use as a playing field in a development plan.

Three features of that trigger catch developers out.

It is not limited to the pitch. Development on any part of a playing field site engages the duty, including car parks, access roads, ancillary buildings and land that has never carried a marked pitch, because the definition works at site level.

The five year look-back means a field taken out of use, fenced off and left to grow is still a playing field for consultation purposes. Ceasing to play on it does not remove the protection, and deliberately letting a pitch deteriorate before applying is a familiar pattern that Sport England's response will address directly.

And an allocation in a development plan brings land within the duty even where no sport has ever taken place on it.

What counts as a playing field

The Order defines a playing field as the whole of a site that encompasses at least one playing pitch, and defines a playing pitch as a delineated area which, together with any run-off, is 0.2 hectares or more and is used for one of a listed set of sports. The list covers association football, rugby, cricket, hockey, lacrosse, rounders, baseball, softball, Gaelic football, shinty, hurling and polo, among others.

Two consequences follow. A tennis court, a bowling green, an athletics track or a multi-use games area is not a playing pitch under that definition, though it may still be protected as open space by local policy. And a small area of grass below 0.2 hectares is not a pitch, which is why the incapable-of-forming-a-pitch exception exists.

Establish the position with evidence rather than assumption. Historic aerial imagery, old ordnance survey editions, club records, league fixtures and the authority's own open space audit all speak to whether a pitch existed and when it was last played on.

The five exceptions and how each is evidenced

Sport England's playing fields policy is a presumption against development that would lead to the loss of, or prejudice the use of, playing field land, subject to five exceptions. Applications succeed by fitting squarely within one of them.

The exception you choose shapes the whole application, so pick it early. An application that hedges between surplus provision and replacement provision tends to satisfy neither, because the evidence for each pulls in a different direction.

Playing pitch strategies as the evidence base

The document that decides most of these cases is the local playing pitch strategy, prepared to Sport England's methodology. It assesses supply and demand sport by sport, grades pitch quality, and classifies each site as having spare capacity, being at capacity or being overplayed.

Read it before you do anything else. If the strategy records the site as overplayed or identifies a shortfall in the sport concerned, the surplus provision exception is closed and the argument moves to replacement. If the strategy is more than a few years old or was prepared before a nearby scheme changed demand, there is room to update it, though commissioning your own assessment to the same methodology is expensive and Sport England will test its assumptions.

Where no current strategy exists, the authority's open space and sports facility evidence base takes its place, and an Open Space Assessment for the application has to engage with it directly. On larger residential schemes the same evidence feeds the provision you are expected to make for children's play, which is a separate calculation set out through a Play Space Assessment.

Replacement provision and what equivalent means

Replacement is the exception most schemes end up using, and it is harder than it looks on a masterplan.

Equivalent or better means comparable in quantity and quality, in a suitable location, and available to the same users. Each of those tests has a practical dimension:

1. Quantity measured in pitches of the right type and size, with run-offs and orientation that work, not in hectares of green space.
2. Quality covering topsoil depth, grading, drainage design, goal provision and changing facilities, since an undrained replacement pitch playable eight weeks a year replaces nothing.
3. Location accessible to the displaced clubs and, where school use is involved, within reach of the school.
4. Security of tenure, so the replacement cannot be lost in five years, usually secured by a planning obligation and a long lease or transfer.
5. Management and maintenance funding, with a specification and a term, because pitch quality degrades quickly without it.
6. Timing, so the replacement is available before the existing pitch is lost, allowing for the establishment period a new grass pitch needs before it can take competitive play.

That last point is where programmes slip. A newly seeded pitch is not playable in its first season, and a condition requiring the replacement to be operational before the existing field is developed can sit on the critical path for a year or more.

What happens when Sport England objects

An objection does not prevent the authority granting permission, but it changes the route. Where a local planning authority proposes to approve development affecting a playing field against a Sport England objection, the application must normally be referred to the Secretary of State under the current consultation direction, which can add months and introduces the possibility of call-in.

That prospect gives Sport England real negotiating weight, and it is why most of these cases are resolved by amendment rather than by decision. The usual landing points are a revised layout that keeps pitch dimensions and orientation intact, a relocated access road, a commuted sum towards improving another site rather than a physical replacement where the strategy supports that, or a package of drainage and changing improvements that raises the quality of retained pitches.

Engage before you submit. Sport England offers pre-application engagement, and a layout amended at that stage costs a fraction of one amended after a committee deferral. Where the scheme also raises recreational pressure on a designated habitat, coordinate the two, because greenspace provided to address recreational pressure around European sites is not automatically acceptable as playing field replacement, and the two requirements can compete for the same land.

Fitting the consultation into a programme

Plan the sequence backwards from the determination date.

Establish the planning history and last-used date of every part of the site during due diligence, not after exchange. Read the playing pitch strategy and the authority's open space audit next. Decide which exception you are relying on, then commission whatever evidence that exception needs, allowing for a pitch assessment that has to be done in a playable season. Approach Sport England and the relevant national governing bodies for pre-application comment, and approach the clubs that use the site, because their support or opposition will be quoted.

Then build the obligation into the section 106 heads of terms early, with the replacement specification, the trigger points and the maintenance term drafted rather than left to be agreed. Where a wider community infrastructure package is in play, the reasoning in a Social Infrastructure Assessment should be consistent with the sport case rather than written separately.

PlanScope drafts these supporting documents structured to UK planning policy, citing the framework and local plan policies relied on and flagging the site specific evidence you need to supply rather than inventing it. Reports should be reviewed before submission, and PlanScope does not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the current consultation requirements and Sport England's published policy, and confirm the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.