Tag: Football

A second all-weather football facility will be available to the Histon & Impington community after South Cambs District Council’s Planning Committee unanimously gave approval for a ‘3g’ football pitch at Impington Village College. The permission includes associated lighting and facilities including a toilet block and a storage container.

Councillors conceded that an informal car park being used by visitors to IVC should have been returned to green space as a condition of the planning application for the Cavendish School, but they have now approved retrospective permission for a formal car park there.

Ryan Kelsall, Deputy CEO of Eastern Learning Alliance, which runs IVC, told HI HUB: “ELA are thrilled that the planning application for the 3G pitch has been approved.

“We firmly believe that the new facility will support the education, health and wellbeing of young people and the community. Furthermore the formalisation of the car park will support traffic and parking management in and around the IVC site.”

More community use

The new pitch will be a further addition to the football facilities available in the village, which already include grass pitches at the Rec and an all-weather pitch constructed during the development of Brook Primary school.

Like the primary school, IVC will be required to make its pitch available to the public. A community use agreement will have to be prepared in consultation with Sport England and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority before the development work can begin.

This will have to cover the pitch, car parking and the toilet block, and include details of pricing policy, hours of use, access by non-educational establishment users, management responsibilities and a mechanism for review.

Cambridgeshire FA, who are supporting the development, have identified at least 38 local football teams – including from Histon Hornets and Milton Colts – that would benefit from the use of the pitch for both training and matches.

Continuing liaison

The IVC football project has proved controversial from the start, with an earlier planning application being withdrawn after the impact of the scheme on local residents was recognised.

As the new plans for sports facilities at IVC were developed – including netball courts and associated floodlights – a Community Liaison Group involving IVC, residents, Councillors and other stakeholders formed to address concerns. These include the management of traffic and parking on and around the site, and landscaping to screen the residential homes there from the expected increase in activity there.

The planning committee has recommended that liaison between IVC and residents continues, to ensure the impact of the traffic management plan is monitored. Ryan Kelsall has endorsed the importance of this group.

He said: “We are keen to build on recent work to ensure collaboration through the residents group led by the Parish, County and District Councillors. We are therefore pleased that The Planning Committee has formally recognised this group by designating it an ‘informative’ group for this project.”

Ros Hathorn, County Councillor for Histon & Impington, is also hopeful that the group has the potential to be effective at protecting residents’ interests. She told HI HUB: “The facilitation of a liaison group… has led to open discussion and has already delivered a commitment to a number of agreed improvements namely an application for double yellow lines and radical changes to youth football parking behaviours.

“There are future verbal commitments for more compromise and review of planning conditions in response to residents’ concerns.

“We have a planning system which is supportive of development and growth. It is almost impossible to stop development even when some people find it upsetting. By bringing people together in the same room we can find practical solutions, understand core concerns and find ways to make things better.

“We cannot stop development but through collaboration and a rigorous Neighbourhood Plan we can make sure development is as good as possible, particularly for site neighbours.” 

READ ALSO: Council recommends approval of IVC sports plans but neighbours fear problems ahead and Council to debate plans for IVC sports facilities and Renewed IVC sports applications spark neighbours’ fury and 3g pitch application withdrawn following new objections and Residents concerns drive objections to 3g pitch proposals and Plans progress for artificial grass pitch at IVC and 3g pitch “provides more public benefit than harm” say planners

Planning officers are recommending that Councillors give the go-ahead for a full-size artificial grass football pitch and a permanent parking area on Impington Village College (IVC) land.

They report “significant third-party support for the provision of the proposed 3G pitch” and note “significant objection on matters such as traffic, parking pressure, visual amenity and noise”. But there were no objections from any statutory consultees, and ultimately the planners conclude that the development “…when weighed in the planning balance provides more public benefit than harm.”

Facilities

The South Cambs Planning Committee, due to meet on 9 April, will be asked to approve the creation of the 3G pitch with perimeter fencing, floodlights, hardstanding areas, a storage container, an embankment, an access footpath and a toilet block.

They will also be asked to give retrospective approval for a permanent car park on an area that was previously green space but has been used as an informal car park since the Cavendish School was built.

Traffic mitigation

Local residents have consistently put forward objections to the 3g pitch facility, citing the impact additional traffic to the site would have – especially in light of the recent approval for a major netball facility there.

But planning officers believe that, by creating an area within the car park for taxis to queue off New Road and introducing a Parking Management Plan – “factoring in the recently approved netball application” – will improve current traffic problems on New Road and also offset the impact of additional traffic to the new facilities.     

They recommend that the situation is kept under review, monitored by the Local Planning Authority and Highway Authority, and that adjustments are made if the traffic problems persist.

Open all hours

Although IVC has asked for permission to operate floodlights from 8am until 10pm on weekdays and until 6pm at weekends, officers are recommending approval of the new application for longer, until 7pm on Saturdays and 8pm on Sundays and public holidays. They justify this as balancing “illuminating the sports facility for maximum use and benefit to sport with the interest of amenity and sustainability”.

They propose the condition that automatic floodlight controls are installed. These would ensure all artificial lighting turns off automatically at the permitted curfew hours, during daylight hours and when the pitch is not in use.

Other conditions

As well as traffic management and limits to opening hours, planners are asking for details of features including the design of the storage container and toilet block, and lighting of the access path, to be approved as a condition of approving the whole scheme.

They also say details of hard and soft landscape works should be submitted to the planning authority and approved in writing. Then if, in the first five years, any trees and shrubs are removed, uprooted, destroyed, die or become damaged or diseased, replacement trees and shrubs of the same size and species as originally planted would have to replace them.

READ ALSO: Council recommends approval of IVC sports plans but neighbours fear problems ahead and Council to debate plans for IVC sports facilities and Renewed IVC sports applications spark neighbours’ fury and 3g pitch application withdrawn following new objections and Residents concerns drive objections to 3g pitch proposals and Plans progress for artificial grass pitch at IVC

Residents wishing to attend the South Cambridge Planning Committee where the 3g pitch proposal is on the agenda can do so in person or online. See the agenda here . Anyone wishing to speak at the meeting can find further details here .