brentwood.gov.uk

The intention to use policy 10.7 to require new developments to meet on and off site infrastructure requirements which would include sports facilities as set out in paragraph 10.40 is welcomed. While no objection is made to the wording of policy 10.7, concerns are raised however about how the proposed policy will make provision for community sports facility infrastructure to be provided by new development in practice. This is pertinent because for the majority of developments proposed in the plan, it will only be practical and appropriate to make provision for indoor or outdoor sport through developer contributions being secured towards off-site projects rather than direct on-site provision being made. In particular, there are the following concerns
* While it is expected that this will be addressed through the Council's emerging evidence base for sport (the Sport and Leisure Study), at present there are no specific sports facility projects identified in the local plan or any published IDP for meeting current or future needs. Unless priority community sports facility infrastructure projects (justified by a robust evidence base) are included in an IDP with appropriate feasibility work undertaken to assess costs and deliverability, it is considered that the scope for using CIL receipts or developer contributions secured through planning obligations towards sports infrastructure will be limited;
* The local plan's current approach (as set out in policy 10.8) to providing for outdoor sports facility needs is focused around meeting conventional quantity standards derived from the current evidence base and it has not been confirmed in the plan how indoor sports facility needs generated by new development will be addressed. In particular, there are no specific priority facility projects identified for meeting current or future needs e.g. new/enhanced leisure centre projects, new playing field/outdoor sports projects etc. This approach would not be consistent with Sport England's current guidance on assessing needs and strategy preparation which is focused around identifying sport specific needs and developing specific proposals to respond to such needs. Our current guidance does not endorse a standards led approach to provision and the NPPF (unlike PPG17 which it replaced) does not specifically advocate the use of standards for providing sports facilities. There are also concerns about the compatibility of the standards approach with the CIL Regulations due to a more forensic approach being taken in practice to the interpretation of Regulation 122 in relation to the tests of the use of planning obligations to secure sports facilities and the pooling limits that are now in place for developer contributions towards sport where planning obligations are still used. Whether sport is secured through CIL (through sports facility projects being identified on the Regulation 123 list) or through developer contributions secured by planning obligations, an up-to-date evidence base with a strategy that includes specific projects is now considered necessary for ensuring that new developments meet the additional needs that they generate for sport. Authorities that continue to rely on standards and securing developer contributions towards generic infrastructure types (such as outdoor sport, indoor sport etc) are now struggling to secure provision in practice due to the constraints imposed by the CIL regulations.

To address the above concerns and to ensure that the approach set out in the policy can deliver with respect to community sports infrastructure, it is requested that the emerging evidence base for sport is used to identify strategic priority projects (in the strategy and action plan documents that evolve from the evidence base) which should then be used for informing what projects will be included in an IDP. Following feasibility work, priority projects included in the IDP should be assessed to determine which will be funded by a future CIL (through inclusion on a CIL Regulation 123 list) and which will be funded by planning obligations (through an approach set out in a complementary Planning Obligations Strategy that is consistent with the CIL regulations and which accounts for the constraints imposed by the pooling restrictions on developer contributions). It should be noted that the inclusion of generic infrastructure types (e.g. sport, leisure, outdoor sport) in CIL Regulation 123 lists or planning obligations strategies is not favoured as this is more likely to preclude developer contributions being secured through planning obligations which is important in the context of the likelihood that CIL will only have a limited ability to fund community sports projects in view of competing infrastructure demands. In practice, it would be preferable for CIL to only include a very small number of identified strategic projects (e.g. one or two new/improved leisure centres) and for planning obligations to be used for securing funding for other identified sports facility projects to maximise the potential for the implementation strategy to provide adequately for sport.

While no changes are sought to the policy itself it is requested that the above advice is considered and followed to ensure that the policy can deliver in practice in relation to community sports infrastructure.