Land North of Cherry Hinton SPD

Thank you for consulting Sport England on the above document.

Sport England Planning Objectives

1. Protect existing facilities: We seek to help protect sports and recreational buildings and land including playing fields. We expect these to be retained or enhanced as part of any redevelopment unless an assessment has demonstrated that there is an excess of provision and they are surplus to requirements, or clear evidence supports their relocation. We are a statutory consultee on all planning applications affecting playing field land and will object to such an application unless one of five exceptions applies.
2. Enhance the quality, accessibility and management of existing facilities: We wish to see the best use made of existing sports facilities through improving their quality, access and management. We have developed a wide range of supporting advice on understanding and planning for facility provision, including efficient facility management such as community access to school sites.
3. Provide new facilities to meet demand: We seek to ensure that communities have access to sufficient high quality sports facilities that are fit for purpose. Using evidence and advocacy, we help to guide investment into new facilities and the expansion of existing ones to meet new demands that cannot be met by existing provision.

In this instance, Sport England would be seeking to ensure the development met Planning Objective 3, in that new facilities for sport are secured to meet the demand generated by the proposed development.

From a policy perspective, there is a requirement to provide 3.31 hectares of space for outdoor sport, based on 1200 units at 2.3 persons per household.

The SPD makes the following statement with regard to provision for sport:

Open space -outdoor sports facilities

"Provision for/contributions towards outdoor sports facilities including playing pitches and other outdoor sports facilities;
changing facilities. Likely to be a mixture of on-site provision and off-site contributions. There is scope to consider
co-location of community sports pitches with the secondary school subject to further discussion. To note CEAAP position
that co-located shared grass pitch provision does not count towards the open space standards".

Sport England supports this flexible approach to meet the demand for outdoor sport, as a combination of on-site and off-site provision may best meet generated demand and locally identified needs. The Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Playing Pitch Strategies (2016) should be used to help inform outdoor sports provision, and the document should be revised to state that these documents will be used to inform outdoor sports provision.

Open space -Indoor sports facilities

"Provision for/contributions towards indoor sports facilities including sports hall and swimming -could be a mixture of
on-site and off-site provision or contributions to off-site provision within the Cherry Hinton area".

Sport England support the principle of provision for community indoor sports facilities being secured, though it is likely that for swimming pools this will take the form of enhancements to existing off-site provision in the locality. Sports hall provision may be provided as part of the new secondary school, provided secured community access is required. The Cambridge and South Cambs Sports Facilities Strategies (2016) can help inform requirements, and the SPD should be revised to include this.

Sport England has developed the Sports Facilities Calculator to help assess demand for sports facilities from a new residential development.

For a development in Cambridge with a population of 2,760 (1200 units x 2.3 persons), the SFC calculates demand for 0.85 sports court (pro-rata cost of £566,415), 29.91m2 of water space (pro-rata cost of £573,433) and 0.12 artificial grass pitch (pro-rata cost of £124,465 - 3G pitch).

Sport England would recommend that the SPD is amended to state that indoor sports provision should be based on existing robust evidence and the use of Sport England planning tools such as the Sports Facilities Calculator.

I hope these comments are helpful. Please contact me if you wish to discuss the contents of this correspondence in more detail.

We look forward to further consultation in due course.

Kind Regards,
Philip Raiswell
Planning Manager