Local Football Facility Plan Hyndburn

Hyndburn is in the North West Region.

The current population of the Authority (ONS 2018 Mid-Year Estimate) is 80,815. This is expected to fall slightly to 77,555 by 2039.

Hyndburn is ranked 9th out of 39 LAs in the region, and 28th out of 326 LAs nationally on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (ONS).

Hyndburn's ethnic composition is primarily white (88%). This is just above the national average (85.4%).

The proportion of Hyndburn’s population represented by the BAME community is 12%. This is similar to the national average (14.6%)

Local authority

The Hyndburn Council Corporate Strategy's (2018 to 2023) vision is to create a Borough where all residents have the best opportunity to prosper. To achieve this, one of the key objectives is to improve the physical and mental well being of residents. This is to be achieved via the provision of high quality leisure and entertainment facilities and developing partnerships with Community and Voluntary Groups to provide residents access to a wide range of community activities.

The Authority Playing Pitch strategy is out of date. It recently commissioned a new PPS, jointly with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. This should be completed in late Spring 2020.

County football association

Hyndburn is covered by the Lancashire County FA. It provides governance for, and development support to, all aspects of local football including coaches, referees, volunteers, clubs and leagues; supporting football for all. The County FA has a designated facilities investment lead officer who works to ensure the right facilities are located in the right locations.

Football Foundation

The Regional Engagement Manager and Regional Technical Project Manager at the Football Foundation work collaboratively with the County FA to provide pre-application support to priority projects for potential investment.

Sport England

Has a network of planning managers who have a statutory role in the planning system to protect playing fields and provide consultation responses to planning applications relating to sporting facilities . They also play a key role in strategic planning for sports facilities, providing advice and support to local authorities to assess need for facilities in their local area.

Professional community club organisations (CCOs)

These offer a variety of programmes and services to support local communities (sporting and non-sporting). The Accrington Stanley Community Trust runs a variety of health, education, engagement, football and sporting activities within the local area.

Local leisure operator

Hyndburn Leisure is the key leisure operator within the Authority. It manages several key leisure sites including Hyndburn Leisure Centre which is a key site for both affiliated and recreational football in the local area.

Local consultation

This has taken place with a broad and diverse set of community groups in Hyndburn. 14 individuals (representing 12 local organisations) were spoken to. The agencies consulted include:

• Accrington Stanley Community Trust
• Lancashire County FA
• Hyndburn Borough Council
• Hyndburn Leisure

(See Appendix B for full list of consultees)

Clubs

There are over 91,000 community football teams in England, spread over an expansive network of clubs and leagues. Hyndburn has a total of 153 teams, which is comparable to local areas of a similar size.

The FA is investing to support clubs both on and off the pitch which includes an aim to have a qualified FA coach with every youth team by 2020/21. In addition, it will support 1,000 clubs to create full player pathways from youth to adult teams and develop 150 community football hubs with male and female pathways, disability and recreational playing opportunities.

Over the last 10-years there has been a significant national increase in the number of large multi-team football clubs. In Hyndburn, five clubs have more than 10 registered teams. These (based upon 2018-19 affiliation data) are:

• Great Harwood Rovers - 29 teams
• Huncoat United - 20 teams
• Rishton United - 15 teams
• Globe Bullough Park - 14 teams
• Oswaldtwistle Hawks - 11 teams

Leagues

The Accrington & District Junior Football League is the primary league catering for clubs and teams in Hyndburn. It offers opportunity for junior boys football across the area. Girls football is catered for by the North Valley & Hyndburn Unity League. While there is no specific local league opportunity for adult, disability and women’s football in Hyndburn, suitable options are available in neighbouring authorities. Burnley and Blackburn provides several leagues delivering adult participation, and the Lancashire FA Ability Counts League in Preston provides a more regional offering for disability football. Opportunities for womens and girls are also provided via the Lancashire FA Women’s County League, which provides entry level grassroots provision up to regional football within the North West Women’s Regional League.

The County FA reports significant cross boundary migration to/from Hyndburn and Burnley, Ribble Valley and Blackburn primarily due to teams migrating to play in the East Lancashire Football Alliance, East Lancashire Football League and Blackburn & District Football Combination.

Disability football

There are 9.4 million people in England with a long-standing limiting disability, illness or condition which equates to 18% of the population – almost one in five. Football playing opportunities should be flexible, inclusive and accessible for everyone, whatever their level of ability. This could entail inclusion in mainstream activity or teams / sessions specifically for people with a disability.

In Hyndburn there are two football sessions specifically for people with a disability. Provision is being developed via Accrington Stanley Community Trust. It is a priority of the County FA to grow this provision. For talented players the FA runs regional centres and England national squads.

Women and girls

The FA has big ambitions for the female game and aims to double levels of participation by 2020. To achieve this requires a combined effort across four pathways: education, recreation, competition and talent.

Education environments have a huge impact on the first experience of football for young girls. This pathway can offer many opportunities for females of all ages to develop and grow a lifelong interest in football.

FA Wildcats girls football centres provide the first step on the recreational pathway, the programme provides girls aged 5-11 with regular opportunities to play football in a fun and engaging environment. Hyndburn does not presently have a FA Wildcats girl’s football centre and it is a priority to establish this activity.

At 11 Hyndburn’s number of female teams is similar to local areas of a similar size. The County FA’s priority is to support existing clubs to grow and encourage more clubs to develop playing opportunities for females. The local girls’ league is the North Valley & Hyndburn Unity League in which matches are played on a home and away basis. It expects to grow provision in future years. As noted above, the local adult female league is the Lancashire FA Women’s County League League; it too plays matches on a home and away basis and is expected to grow provision in future years.

For talented players, the most local FA Regional Talent Club (RTC) is Blackburn Rovers. Higher level talent pathway opportunities are also provided regionally and nationally by the FA, culminating in the England Women’s national squads. The most local Women’s Super League teams are Manchester City FC and Manchester United FC, with Blackburn Rovers FC also competing in the FA Women’s Championship. Collectively, these clubs provide player pathway opportunities for gifted and talented female players and a spectator interest for fans.

Small sided football

Many different types of small-sided football are played in England, from teams and leagues to recreational and informal. It is an established and important part of the modern game.

Small-sided teams and leagues are organised and competitive activities; typically with players registered to clubs and affiliated to leagues and their county FAs. Examples include futsal and local small-sided leagues running at venues such as sports halls, 3G FTPs or small-sided 3G centres. The key local offer is the located at Accrington Academy through the Stanley Soccer League.

Futsal is an exciting, fast-paced, small sided team game that is widely played across the world. Typically it is played on an indoor surface with hockey-sized goals and a size 4 football with reduced ball bounce. It is the FA’s aim to ensure that futsal is available across the country.

There are currently no futsal teams in Hyndburn. It is a priority for the County FA to grow futsal for all participants.

Recreational football

Recreational football is played where facilities are typically booked and there might be someone to help organise. Examples include FA Just Play sessions, walking football and casual pitch hire for small-sided match play.

There are currently 4 FA Just Play centres in Hyndburn. Walking football sessions are delivered by a range of community organisations such as Accrington Stanley Community Trust. Walking football and Just Play are County FA priorities for further growth and development.

Informal football is played in local parks and green spaces – it is free, open access and often played spontaneously (normal clothing is worn). Common examples include a kick-about at a local park or on a multi-use games area (MUGA).

Currently, informal football in Hyndburn is played across various sites throughout the local authority. Parks such as Bullough Park, Rhyddings Park, Milshaw Park and Gatty Park are key site locations that are heavily used.

The key strengths of local football in Hyndburn include a growing youth football offer, clubs investing in their facilities, such as Great Harwood Rovers, Oswaldtwistle St Mary’s, a proactive local authority that has invested in pitch improvements and a developing community relationship with Accrington Stanley FC and the Accrington Stanley Community Trust. It is recommended that this is sustained and also encouraged to grow further. However, access to facilities due to cross boundary migration of teams sees high demand for 3G training facility, this also includes, changing provision that needs adaption and investment to create and meet the demand for youth football.

It is therefore recommended that the future football development priorities for Hyndburn are:

1. Maintaining investment in grass pitches at key strategic sites
2. Supporting the growth and development of recreational football by developing new and improved facilities
3. Supporting key club hub sites where changing facility development, refurbishment is needed, including youth, women and girls football, to support growth
4. Development and growth to support disability football
5. Potential investment for smaller scale training facilities at potential key hub sites or in specified areas of the district

The facilities required to assist this are now set out in the Assets and opportunities section.

Each priority project that progresses to a funding application via the Football Foundation will produce a detailed ‘site development plan’ specifying all football development activity, usage and key partner engagement.

This section reviews existing football facility assets in Hyndburn. It identifies current issues and presents opportunities for improvements, including a list of priority projects for potential investment. Local assets and opportunities have been reviewed in line with four investment priorities:

• 3G FTPs
• Improved grass pitches
• Changing room pavilions / clubhouses
• Small sided facilities

To ensure a consistent and high quality approach, each local area is reviewed applying a standard approach, supplemented by input from consultation with local partners and stakeholder organisations.

While each investment priorities are reviewed individually, it is understood that they can be inter-reliant; account is, thus, taken of these potential connections.

3G FTPs are a high quality and indispensable part of modern football facilities; their impact cannot be underestimated. In recent years the industry has seen major innovations and improvements to artificial surfaces (and sports lighting). This has created playing surfaces that replicate a good standard natural turf pitch whilst significantly increasing levels of use (x20). All FTPs must have sports lighting to achieve this.

The high quality, consistent playing surface is the ideal environment to play the game and for young people to learn. With regular maintenance programmes, FTPs can be heavily used all year round with no decline in quality. They almost completely negate annoying fixture cancellations during winter months, helping football to be a key part of a regular physical activity habit.

High capacity levels offer a great opportunity to embrace all formats and engage all participants. A full-sized 3G caters for an average of 1,200 participants per week and is suitable for various location types. That means being fully inclusive to all sections of the community, with a particular focus on under-represented groups such as women and girls, people with a disability, BAME communities and people from lower socio-economic groups.

The way 3G FTPs are used is rapidly changing; current line-marking systems allow for match play across all formats of football (5v5, 7v7, 9v9 and 11v11). This enables significant levels of match-play to be transferred from grass to 3G.

In Hyndburn, full-sized (11 v 11) 3G FTPs are located at:

• Accrington Academy
• Accrington Stanley Community Trust (Highams Playing Field)
• Accrington & Rossendale College
• Hyndburn Leisure Centre

There are also two small sided 3G FTPs located at St Christopher's C of E School

There is currently no valid PPS and, therefore, demand for full sized 3G FTPs has been calculated using the FA training ratio model 1:38.

On the basis that there are 153 teams in Hyndburn, there is a requirement for 4 full sized 3G FTPs (four are currently provided). It is however noted that capacity at Accrington Academy and Accrington & Rossendale College is restricted for grassroots clubs/teams during midweek peak periods due to them being utilised by academy teams from local league clubs. It was thus, based upon local consultation, concluded that there is a requirement for an additional full size 3G FTP to adequately service affiliated football demand in the area.

All four full sized 3G FTPs are available for community use (notwithstanding restricted midweek use) and are on the FA Register (meaning they are quality checked and can be used for football match play).

The geographic spread is uneven; the main 3G FTP venues are located to the east and in the central part of the Authority. There is a facility gap to the north and west and a need to intall provision to service clubs in Great Harwood and Rishton. The project identified will, geographically, cater for both of these areas.

Local consultation reveals common issues associated with limited 3G FTP availability and, thus, longer than desirable travel distances. It is the purpose of this plan to address these issues.

One priority project for potential investment is identified. It was selected based upon the need to service a specific local catchment and to service existing demand from local clubs.

Playing fields are one of the most important resources for sport in England. All football players should have the opportunity to play on good quality grass pitches. However, FA data shows that 63% of pitches in England are poor / low quality and one in six games is cancelled. As such, poor pitch quality is consistently cited as the number one issue for players.

The priority is, therefore, to sustainably improve grass pitch quality across all main pitch owners (local authorities, education establishments and clubs). However, the level of maintenance required to obtain good quality standards is regularly affected by restricted budgets and limited knowledge/ training. Compaction and grass coverage are two key causes of poor quality pitches. Both are commonly treated via a maintenance driven solution (and do not necessarily require costly drainage schemes).

Playing fields are also a valuable resources for informal play and open-access sites are encouraged but, for many, problems such as dog fouling and vandalism mean that they need to be protected with mitigation measures such as fencing.

The key challenge is to create a sustainable approach to provide good quality football pitches for the long term. Most local authorities (78%) intend to increase pitch hire fees in the future. However, the majority of players (63%) believe facilities are already expensive and some (16%) believe prices are prohibitive. A sustainable solution should, therefore, carefully balance pitch quality and affordability.

While the education sector (37%) and local authorities (32%) are still the principal asset owners of grass pitches, clubs / leagues own or maintain an increasing share (currently 25%). Assets and opportunities have been considered across each sector.

Although large (3+ pitch) strategic sites are important and make up much of the project list within the LFFPs, this does not mean that other club, league and community/voluntary sites are not important or eligible for funding. These sites are key to the Football Foundation's Grass Pitch Programme to deliver 20,000 good quality pitches.

For more information click here.

PitchPower

The PitchPower app is the gateway to any grass pitch improvement funding. It is the tool that will allow clubs and organisations to complete pitch inspections and access funds.

If you haven't signed up and completed a PitchPower pitch inspection, you will need to do this before you can apply for the Grass Pitch Maintenance Fund.

Learn more by clicking here.

There are currently ten grass pitch sites in Hyndburn with three or more full-size pitch equivalents (or with fewer than three but deemed to be of strategic importance). These contain 36 grass pitches.

Local consultation confirms the prevailing issue of poor quality pitch. This impacts negatively on the carrying capacity and usability of pitches throughout the season and particularly during the key winter period.

Of the ten key pitch sites referenced above it was determined that seven should be prioritised. This will result in quality improvements to 21 pitches:

Seven priority projects for potential investment are identified. Pitch quality rating was evidenced by local partners. Prioritisation was based on a rationale of selecting sites in the poorest condition that are, or offer potential to be, best-utilised:

These can provide a number of different benefits. While the primary function is normally the provision of changing rooms to accommodate match-play and training (for players and officials), there can be equal value in facilities such as community and education rooms, catering facilities and spectator toilets.

Each project will take a progressive approach to pavilions and clubhouses (beyond the provision of changing rooms) and be open to new opportunities to engage the whole community. That means, creating environments that are welcoming to players, spectators, volunteers, officials and all sections of the community.

Such assets should support other investment priorities (e.g. 3G FTPs and grass pitches) and be located at sites that will have the greatest impact on local communities. To ensure this, focus is given to sites with three or more full-size pitch equivalents. However, as pitch quality is the number one priority for players this is prioritised before investment in changing room pavilions /clubhouses.

Clearly, facilities need to be well managed and maintained to keep them in a good state of repair. Consideration will be given to reviewing the best operator solution for key sites and the installation of revenue generating features such as catering facilities and community rooms. To achieve this, business plan support will be given to each priority project as it progresses to an application to the Football Foundation.

Of the ten key grass pitch sites in Hyndburn with three or more full-size pitch equivalents (or with fewer than three but deemed to be of strategic importance), seven have suitable changing rooms,and three require improvement/replacement. Identified projects relate to provision for affiliated football in the area via the modernisation of existing facilities to ensure they are fit for purpose for mini and youth football.

Three priority projects for potential investment are identified:

Good facilities are important to all small sided football players, but it is important to understand the different formats of the small-sided game and the various facility types they relate to.

Research suggests that small-sided players in teams and leagues, and in recreational sessions, prefer a 3G surface type because it replicates a good standard natural turf pitch. These facilities have already been covered in the 3G FTP section of this LFFP.

Indoor environments currently accommodate 20% of football participation and are also popular with players in teams and leagues and recreational sessions . Indoor sports halls are most popular, along with some community halls and indoor 3G centres. Environments need to be engaging, have clear line-marking and the correct size goalposts.

Informal players require facilities that are open and free to access as this enables play opportunities that are often spontaneous. In these circumstances multi-use games areas (MUGAs) can be effective in areas of high urban population and limited green space. Such facilities can be modern, bright, creative and engaging. While this plan will identify suitable locations for such facilities, the design and specifics of the facility type can be agreed at a later stage with Football Foundation staff when projects are ready to progress to pre-application stage.

Parks and open green spaces are also important to informal play and require goalposts and zones that are free from litter and dog fouling.

Local consultation indicates that, at present, no indoor facilities require improvement to develop small sided football.

Two potential opportunities for MUGAs are identified. In each case the rationale is based on the site being in an area of significant population with a relatively high proportion of people from lower social economic groups. The two sites identified are Oak Hill Park and Lowerfold Park; they are key sites for informal football activity and offer potential to improve provision to further increase current levels of participation.

At this point no potential projects to improve existing parks and open spaces, other than the identified MUGA opportunities, are identified.

A range of local agencies and larger (usually 10 plus team) local football clubs was invited to participate in the LFFP consultation. Those that contributed are listed below:

• Engagement Officer - Football Foundation
• Head of Facilities & Investment - Lancashire County FA
• Football Development Officer - Lancashire County FA
• CEO - Accrington Stanley Community Trust
• Principle Planning Officer - Hyndburn Borough Council
• Deputy Head of Environmental Services - Hyndburn Borough Council
• CEO - Hyndburn Leisure
• Business Manager - Mount Carmel Roman Catholic School
• Business Manager - Hyndburn Academy
• Club Secretary - Great Harwood FC
• Club Secretary - Globe Bullough FC
• Club Secretary - Rishton United FC
• Club Secretary - Hyndburn Youth FC
• Club Secretary - Accrington Sports & Football Club