Planning for Sport and Active Recreation Facilities ... - Brent Council

sports grounds from development, opportunities for
large sum s106 agreements are increasingly rare. Should
there be an exceptional circumstance allowing the loss
of existing sports provision, this should be adequately
compensated for through a separate s106 agreement.
To fund the high costs involved with sports facility
improvements this will require significant contributions
to be met from development. Improvements such as
pitch drainage, new buildings including sports halls,
pavilions and changing rooms, and purpose built facilities
such as swimming pools, courts and artificial pitches can
range from around £75,000- £5 million+. While these
could be fully funded through development, this would
rely on large or significant scale development schemes
coming forward in areas of deficiency, which can offer
large lump sum payments to be spent in the general
vicinity of the development. In many cases, s106 monies
only partially fund these projects and require funding
from other sources. In practice the number of large
scale development schemes requiring s106 obligations
fluctuate each year (roughly between 30-50 and probably
20-30 are signed) and it is not always appropriate to
prioritise monies towards sport facilities improvement in
each case.
In practice, as there is a limited availability of s106
contributions with different services competing for
equally important priorities of need, not all improvement
programmes can be funded by s106 obligations and
contributions. Sport provision is only one element
of a number of pressures requiring new provision or
improvement in the borough, and competes with other
higher priority needs. Such demands include new school
places and education facilities, transport improvements,
new health facilities, improved public open space and
play facility provision, training opportunities, public art
provision, public realm improvements, new community
spaces etc. Sport does need to be raised high on the list
of priorities due to the poor levels of provision, and low
participation rates compared to London and England.
It should also be recognised for its health benefits and
contribution to crime reduction, particularly amongst
adolescents.
It is therefore particularly important the deficiencies
for sport provision are identified in the borough and
recommendations for where these can be improved
are disseminated to the wider network. This includes
Council members, council officers in the Parks, Sports
Development, and Planning Services, Brent’s s106 officer
and developers.
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When development proposals do come
forward, this forms the evidence base in which monies
can be prioritised towards improving sports participation
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in the Borough.
Due to the nature of development, it is often difficult to
predict when a large scale planning application, which
could offer significant contributions towards sports
improvement will be submitted or when this will be
built. Although in many cases pre-application advice
is given to developers, this is not always the case, and
therefore there is no reliability of when a development
may come forward. Also once applications are approved
and s106 agreements signed, the developer has 3 years
to make a start on the development. In some cases,
due to any number of reasons this may not proceed, or
the construction phase takes longer than 3 years. This
therefore makes it difficult for the council to time the
delivery of a sports facility improvement programme in
line with new development.
While planning gain is a useful method of delivering
improved sports facility provision, there are constraints
which limit its use. Negotiating on how s106 monies will
be used when competing with other priority pressures,
uncertainty as to how much, where and when funds will
become available, and setting a time-frame in the delivery
of a programme of sports improvement facilities are some
of these. In many cases, particularly for more expensive
improvements, s106 monies used in combination
with other funding streams may be the most practical
approach to delivering a sports improvement programme.