Development Management Submission Document

The positive approach in broad terms towards applications for floodlighting for sports and other leisure faciltiies is welcomed as such lighting enables sports facilities to be used in the evenings and other periods of limited daylight which coincides with peak periods of community use of such facilities. This approach would be consistent with paragraphs 70 and 73 of the NPPF. Criteria (i) and (iii) in the policy are considered to be appropriate for assessing the acceptability of sports lighting schemes as they cover the key issues that should be considered.

However, objection is made to criterion (ii) which only permits schemes where there is a curfew time of 10.00 p.m. In practice, the majority of floodlit sports facilities would not need to extend the hours of use beyond 10.00 p.m. in order to meet community needs. However, there are some facilities such as artificial grass pitches where there is still demand for use after 10.00 p.m in order to meet community needs (it should be noted that this rarely extends beyond 11.00 p.m. in practice). The proposed 10.00 p.m. curfew in the policy would introduce a presumption against such proposals even where they could demonstrate that the impact on residential amenity, environment etc could be avoided or mitigated through the other criteria. This is considered a potentially unreasonable policy restriction as each scheme should be considered on its merits and the policy as worded implies that all sports lighting applications which have hours of use beyond 10.00 pm will be resisted regardless of their merits and the ability to demonstrate that any impact could be satisfactorily addressed. Conversely, there may be some schemes which due to their characteristics justify the imposition of a curfew before 10.00 pm. The policy curfew would therefore be too inflexible to respond to the characteristics of individual proposals. Instead, planning conditions should be used for imposing restrictions on hours of use for individual schemes because they can be justified in the context of the particular planning application.

Due to rigid nature of criterion (ii) and the presumption it would introduce against development that could otherwise be acceptable in all other respects, the policy is not considered to accord with the effective or conformity with national policy tests of soundness.

It is also requested that paragraph 2.45 of the supporting text provides a reference to Sport England's 'Artificial Sports Lighting' guidance (2012) http://www.sportengland.org/facilities-planning/tools-guidance/design-and-cost-guidance/artificial-sports-facilities/ as this has recently been prepared in consultation with th sports and lighting bodies and provides detailed specialist advice on sports lighting schemes which may assist applicants and local planning authorities.

Sport England welcomes the broad thrust of the policy, but suggest that in only allowing new playing pitch proposals in areas of pitch supply deficit, that the policy is unduly restrictive and inflexible. Playing pitch proposals may also come about under the circumstances envisaged by paragraph 74 (second bullet point) of the NPPF (replacement pitches for a facility being lost elsewhere), but they might not meet the policy as currently worded as they might not be in areas of deficit of supply. Playing field development does not occur speculatively and as such we are concerned that the policy as currently worded is unduly restrictive.

This approach would not accord with Government policy in the NPPF in terms of paragraph 70 in relation to planning positively for the provision and use of community facilities (including sports venues) or paragraph 74 in terms of permitting the principle of replacement playing field provision.