In the Council's outline planning application (P1451.10)
presented to their Regulatory Services Committee on 8th March 2012 for
the housing development of the Albemarle fields significant mention was
made of the loss of playing fields. To make the whole project acceptable
mitigation in the shape of new facilities at both the Dagnam Park NR and
the old Broxhill School site was agreed, the following section from the
application makes the proposal clear.
6.2.6 The importance of playing field provision within the Borough
is acknowledged and the application therefore proposes a package of measures
to compensate for the loss of playing fields and open space on the application
site. These may be summarised as follows:
- Improvement and new facilities at Broxhill to include drainage, reseeding
and levelling of the existing open space to create two new football pitches.
- Improved facilities at Central Park including a new skate park, Multi
Use Games Area (MUGA), children's play facilities and enhanced walkways.
Following further discussions with Sport England the proposals were
further revised to include the following:
- provision of additional sports pitches at Dagnam Park
- improvements to the Broxhill site changing rooms
Sport England were unhappy with the original proposals in that they consider
the Broxhill pitches are not new and cannot therefore be considered as
replacements and that although they consider the Dagnam Park pitches to
be new they still insist that changing room facilities and parking provision
will need to be provided. At the time of the report's publication Council
officers were disputing that new facilities apart from pitches were required
at Dagnam Park.
The subsequent published
minutes of the meeting show that the application was approved with
several provisos pertaining to the sports facilities, in that the following
conditions should be met :-
Payment of circa £1,000,000 to the Council for improvements to
Central Park as part of the Harold Hill Ambitions.
Payment of circa £120,000 to the Council for the cost of works in
respect of improvements to Dagnam Park (eg drainage/seeding/marking etc)
to provide two new football pitches (cost of the works to be established
following completion of survey);
Payment of circa £246,000 to the Council for the cost of works in
respect of improvements to Broxhill (eg drainage/levelling/seeding/ marking
etc) to provide two new football pitches (cost of the works to be established
following completion of survey);
Payment of circa £200,000 to the Council for refurbishments works
to theBroxhill Sports Pavilion (cost of the works to be established following
completion of survey);
All of that would be subject to a Section 106 Agreement.
"Section 106 (S106) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
allows a local planning authority (LPA) to enter into a legally-binding
agreement or planning obligation with a landowner in association with
the granting of planning permission. The obligation is termed a Section
106 Agreement.
These agreements are a way of delivering or addressing matters that are
necessary to make a development acceptable in planning terms. They are
increasingly used to support the provision of services and infrastructure,
such as highways, recreational facilities, education, health and affordable
housing.
The scope of such agreements is laid out in the government's Circular
05/2005. Matters agreed as part of a S106 must be:-
relevant to planning, necessary to make the proposed development acceptable
in planning terms, directly related to the proposed development, fairly
and reasonably related in scale and kind to the proposed development,
and reasonable in all other respects.
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The reason that the Council is so keen to have Sport England on board
is that it will then not be necessary for the application to be referred
to the Secretary of State. It should be mentioned that in the original
Harold
Hill Ambitions document and consultation, below, no mention was made
of Dagnam Park other than to proclaim the desire to "Protect and
enhance Dagnam Park as an excellent natural environment for families to
enjoy"

Members will be aware that Dagnam Park was used extensively for sport
up until the 1980s
At the FODP's first major public meeting in 2003 Council
plans were revealed for new football pitches in the park. These were
unrelated to any development of the Albemarle fields. I think it is fair
to say the idea received a mixed reception from the 150 local people present
and was subsequently quietly shelved by the Council. It was discussed
at Friends meetings at the time and again feelings were mixed but since
no formal proposals were forthcoming the issue slipped from our agenda
without us ever taking an agreed position on the issue.
My thanks are due to Don and Dennis for background material
in researching this item.
Del Smith.
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