General
Sport England is a Non-Departmental Public Body and the Government’s strategic lead for community sport. We provide advice and support to local planning authorities preparing development plans on community sport related matters. We are also a statutory consultee on planning applications affecting playing fields and therefore we engage in the development plan process to complement this role.
Sport England advocates that the new local plan is prepared in accordance with the relevant Government planning policy in section 8 of the NPPF especially paragraphs 96 and 97 which specifically focus on open space, sport and recreation. To complement Government policy, Sport England has prepared a Forward Planning guidance note http://www.sportengland.org/facilities-planning/planning-for-sport/forward-planning/ aimed at local planning authorities preparing local plans which provides more detailed guidance on planning for sport in development plans. Please note that this guide will shortly be updated by Sport England – a draft of the new guidance is on our website at https://www.sportengland.org/facilities-planning/planning-for-sport/planning-for-sport-guidance-consultation-draft/. .
I have considered the main consultation document and the topic papers on ‘Good Design and Healthy Living’ and ‘Social and Community Infrastructure Needs’. The focus on facilitating good design and healthy living in chapter 7 and providing for community services (including sport and recreation) in chapter 8 is particularly welcomed.
7. Facilitating Good Design and Healthy Living
The reference (page 49) to the Health & Wellbeing Strategy and the role that the local plan plays in achieving its objectives is supported as well as the specific reference to helping to create healthy living environments which make it easier to participate in physical activity. The reference to Sport England’s Active Design guidance in the list of evidence (page 52) and the topic paper is especially endorsed as the guidance can be used for helping to shape local plan policies to deliver the wider health and activity related aims and objectives. In response to the question about how to ensure healthy communities and development is appropriate and of a quality design through the local plan I would provide the following advice:
• The local plan should include a strategic objective related to improving health and well-being through creating active environments. This would be consistent with Government policy and Sport England’s strategy.
• Sport England’s Active Design principles should be embedded into the local plan’s policies including those relating to urban design, health/well-being, active transport and green infrastructure. The application of the Active Design principles would represent a clear and transparent approach for helping to deliver the local plan’s emerging focus on creating healthy living environments. The principles can be applied at both a strategic scale in the master planning of major new developments and at the local scale in the detailed design of both new developments and enhancements to existing communities. The principles complement conventional urban design principles so policies in the local plan that deal with matters such as high quality design, design principles in new development etc. should include these principles. Embedding the Active Design principles throughout the plan is considered to be more effective in terms of delivery than treating Active Design as a standalone issue in the local plan. This approach has been taken through the recent review of the Essex Design Guide https://www.essexdesignguide.co.uk/ where Active Design principles have been embedded throughout the guide so that they are considered when issues as diverse as highway design and landscaping are looked at rather than being potentially overlooked if treated as a separate theme. Sport England has published a case study https://www.sportengland.org/facilities-planning/active-design/ on how the Essex Design Guide has successfully embedded the Active Design principles which is aimed at local authorities considering taking a similar approach in other strategic documents. The adoption by the Council of the Essex Design Guide or a similar approach being taken in a review of the Council’s Design & Townscape Guide is advocated. The Active Design guidance includes a checklist so that any development can undertake a self-assessment against the guidance under each principle (or be assessed by the local authority) to ensure that opportunities for encouraging physical activity are maximised in practice. Such an approach could be incorporated into design and access statements (or design codes) for major developments or part of HIAs as a requirement of local plan policy for instance to assist with delivery. This provides a consistent and transparent way of ensuring the principles are considered.
• Local plan policies should require Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) to be submitted as part of large and/or sensitive applications but for this to be effective in terms of outcomes, the Council would need to give weight to HIAs and subject them to appropriate scrutiny to ensure that the health impacts of developments are fully considered in practice. While HIAs are established, in general terms, the weight given to them in the application determination process by local planning authorities has been variable in practice. If their preparation by developers is to be justified, appropriate weight needs to be given to them in planning policy and by requiring them to be included as part of Environmental Impact Assessments for major developments is a suggestion as this would help in terms of the status given to health impacts in the preparation and determination of planning applications. The Council’s Public Health team should be engaged in reviewing HIAs to ensure that the issues are satisfactorily considered and where appropriate mitigation is made as part of an application. The scope of HIAs should be widened beyond conventional health impact considerations to include how a development creates opportunities for people to be physically active e.g. through demonstrating that Sport England’s Active Design guidance checklist has been completed to demonstrate how physical activity opportunities have been considered in practice in new developments. As the Council will be aware, the Essex Planning Officers Association (EPOA) have recently approved the revised Essex HIA guidance for developers and part of the review is focused around widening the scope to include physical activity considerations including the application of Active Design principles. It is advocated that the Council (as a member of EPOA) either advocate the use of this guidance in the local plan or develops its own guidance which incorporates advice in the EPOA guidance.
• Local Plan policies should advocate that developers consider the ‘Essex Healthy Places - Advice note for planners, developers and designers’ that has recently been approved by the EPOA as this provides specific guidance on how health (including physical activity) considerations should be addressed in the planning and design of new developments.
8. Providing Community Services and Infrastructure
The joint preparation of a Playing Pitch Strategy and a Built Facilities Strategy by the Council and the other South Essex authorities is welcomed. These strategies together with the expected overarching South Essex strategies for playing pitches and built facilities will provide a robust basis for informing and justifying the policies and allocations in the emerging local plan in relation to planning for community sports facilities. This approach would accord with paragraph 96 of the NPPF. More specifically, these strategies should be used for the following:
• Justifying the protection of existing sports facilities in accordance with paragraph 97 of the NPPF;
• Planning positively for meeting identified needs for new or enhanced sports facilities associated with meeting the needs of both the current and future population of the area;
• Allocating sites for new sports facilities to meet identified needs if applicable;
• Setting out the approach to sports facility provision in new development in relation to both direct provision as part of developments or through securing developer contributions (planning obligations or CIL) towards priority projects identified within the strategies;
• Planning for the shared use of existing and new community facilities e.g. the shared use of sports facilities in schools by expecting new schools or new/enhanced facilities on existing school sites to provide for community use secured through community use agreements.
• Planning to meet strategic and cross-boundary sports facility needs of the wider South Essex area.
Sport England would expect policies and (if applicable) allocations to be developed through the emerging local plan which positively address the above matters in response to the evidence base. These should be consistent with Government policy in the NPPF (especially section 8) and consider Sport England’s guidance referred to above. Sport England would be happy to provide further advice to the Council on this matter and would be willing to comment on draft policies in advance of formal consultations.
12. Ensuring that the New Local Plan is Delivered
In relation to delivering the new local plan’s emerging priorities in relation to sport and physical activity, the following is advocated:
• Provision for Sport in New Development: In an urban area like Southend, it is considered unlikely that it will be appropriate to provide on-site provision for formal sports facilities in the majority of new developments that come forward. The Council therefore needs to develop an approach to developer contributions that provides some certainty that new developments that generates a need for additional sports facilities make an appropriate contribution towards priority sports facility projects that will meet the needs of the community. In many areas of the country, the introduction of CIL has resulted in provision for sport being reduced as other infrastructure projects have taken priority when allocating CIL receipts. Consideration will therefore need to be given to whether it is more appropriate in the future to seek to secure provision for sport through planning obligations instead especially in the light of the expected changes to Government legislation and policy which will remove the pooling of contributions secured through planning obligations and Regulation 123 lists that relate to CIL. A review of the Council’s approach to planning obligations and CIL in the context of the Council’s new local plan policies and evidence base for sport would be necessary to deliver this. The approach to planning for sport needs to avoid a scenario where the Council identify contributions and projects in response to each individual planning application on an ad hoc and reactive basis. Such an approach would not considered to be appropriate or sustainable and would not ensure that the local community consistently receive the benefits of new development in their areas. Furthermore, the local plan needs to make provision for a planned approach to community sports provision on strategic scale developments where provision is made on-site to ensure that where new facilities are provided that they are responsive to the needs identified by the community (in the Council’s evidence base documents) rather than led by developers who often have limited understanding of sports facility planning and local needs. For example, when the allocations for major development have been decided through the local plan process, a strategy should be prepared identifying how each development should make provision for sport and recreation based on the priorities identified in the Council’s evidence base in order to provide clarity and transparency to all parties.
• Public Health: Funding that may be available through the Council’s public health function that can be used towards sports facilities should be co-ordinated with developer contributions to ensure that opportunities for delivering priority projects are maximised. Sports facility projects may offer the potential to deliver public health priorities identified in the refreshed Health & Well-being Strategy especially those that encourage participation in physical activity by under-represented groups. Close working between planning and public health functions will be required to ensure that co-ordination of priorities takes place in practice.
• Partnership Working: To maximise the potential to secure funding for delivering key sports facility projects it will be essential that partnership working takes place because without this there is a risk that the limited funding available from different partners will not be co-ordinated. To take this forward in practical terms, as already advocated by Sport England through its engagement with the Council on the playing pitch/built facility strategies, an implementation group should be set up consisting of the Council, Active Essex, Sport England and sports governing bodies which would identify the priority projects to meet identified needs and develop an action plan for securing the funding for delivering these priorities. The local plan can assist by aligning such an action plan to the a review of the Infrastructure Delivery Plan to ensure that priorities agreed by the partners are prioritised for funding in relation to the use of CIL and planning obligation receipts. Such funding could then be used as match funding in relation to conventional funding sources such as Sport England’s lottery funds, governing body funding, public health funding etc. Strategic working with the other South Essex authorities is also advocated as it may be possible to provide facilities that serve more than one local authority by joint working which would reduce the funding required. In this regard, consideration should be given to the principle of cross-boundary financial contributions towards strategic projects that serve more than one local authority area.