Considering sport in development management
Sport England aims to ensure positive planning for sport, enabling the right facilities to be provided in the right places, based on robust and up-to-date assessments of need for all levels of sport and all sectors of the community. To achieve this, our objectives are to seek to protect sports facilities from loss as a result of redevelopment; to enhance existing facilities through improving their quality, accessibility and management; and to provide new facilities that are fit for purpose to meet demands for participation now and in the future.
Protecting, enhancing and providing opportunities to participate in sport is fundamental to creating sustainable communities. Therefore, Sport England seeks to ensure that the needs of sport are given appropriate consideration and significant weight in the development management process. The Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) makes the need for such consideration clear in its requirements to: deliver community and cultural facilities to meet local needs; protect existing sports and recreational buildings and land; guard against the unnecessary loss of valued facilities and services; promote mixed developments; plan positively to provide opportunities for outdoor sport in the Green Belt; and ensure that decisions are based on robust, up-to-date and relevant evidence.
For more details on development management please see the accompanying guide below. This guide provides advice on how sport should be considered by those involved in preparing, assessing and determining planning applications which either affect or propose sporting provision.
Sport England’s role in development management
Sport England is a statutory consultee on planning applications affecting playing field land. The requirement to consult Sport England covers all playing field land regardless of ownership and all playing pitches regardless of their surface (i.e. natural and artificial grass pitches). Sport England is also a non-statutory consultee on a range of other sport-related planning applications along with those for major residential developments. Sport England encourages and welcomes early discussions with interested parties in the development management process at the pre-application stage. Further details of Sport England’s statutory and non-statutory consultee roles are provided within the accompanying Development Management Guide and the Planning Applications page of our website.
Sport England has a network of Planning Managers across the country who implement its development management and wider planning function. Contact details of the Planning Team are provided within the accompanying guide and our Planning Application pages.