Local Football Facility Plan Wellingborough

Wellingborough is in the East Midlands Region.

The current population of the Authority (ONS 2018 Mid-Year Estimate) is 79,478. This is expected to rise to 86,647 by 2039.

Wellingborough is ranked 14 out of 40 LAs in the region, and 132 out of 326 LAs nationally on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (ONS).

Wellingborough's ethnic composition is primarily white (87.3%). This is higher than the national average (85.4%).

The proportion of its population represented by the BAME community is 12.7%. This is below the national average (14.6%)

Local authority

The North Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy (JCS) is the strategic Part 1 Local Plan for Corby, East Northamptonshire, Kettering and Wellingborough. The vision is to ensure that North Northamptonshire will be widely recognised as a safe, healthy, affordable and attractive area for residents and visitors, and an excellent place for business to invest in. In addition, the area will be a showpiece for modern green living and well managed sustainable development which will take advantage of a strategic transport network to be a nationally important growth area.

The Plan for the Borough of Wellingborough 2011-2031 (Part 2) provides detailed planning policies to deliver the vision and objectives highlighted in Part 1; it was adopted in February 2019. It protects existing playing pitches and seeks to ensure a network of good quality sport and recreation that will meet the borough’s current and future needs. The strategy and action part of the document will be an evidence base to support the implementation of Policy GI 5.

The Wellingborough Playing Pitch Strategy (PPS) was adopted in 2017. The key findings and stated overarching priorities are to improve the quality of grass pitch provision to reduce shortfalls. There is also a need to address the shortfall in 3G FTP provision for training demand and consider utilisation of 3G provision for match play to reduce pressure on grass pitch stock.

It should be noted that , as part of a reorganisation of current Northamptonshire Local Authority boundaries, the Borough Council of Wellingborough will be subsumed into a larger North Northamptonshire unitary authority alongside Corby, Kettering and East Northamptonshire with a 'go live' date of April 2021. Future versions of the LFFP should therefore reflect the revised Local Authority boundaries.

County football association

Wellingborough is covered by the Northamptonshire 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). Northampton Town FC Community Trust runs a variety of health, education, engagement, football and sporting activities in the local area. Wellingborough is a strategic hub site for activity to be delivered by NTFC Community Trust over the next three years. There are a number of activities including: weekly disability and mental health sessions at the Redwell centre and weekly Premier League Kicks sessions on the Queensway and Kingsway estates targeting young people to reduce anti social behaviour.

Local leisure operator

Places Leisure is the key leisure operator in Wellingborough. It currently runs two leisure centres; Waendel Leisure Centre and Redwell Leisure Centre. The latter has a full sized 3G FTP.

Consultation

This has taken place with a broad and diverse set of community groups in Wellingborough. 15 individuals (representing 13 local organisations) were spoken to. The agencies consulted include:

• Earls Barton United FC
• Irchester Romans Youth
• Wellingborough Whitworth FC
• Wollaston School

(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. Wellingborough has a total of 159 teams, which is higher than 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 ten years there has been a significant national increase in the number of large multi-team football clubs. In Wellingborough, six clubs have more than 10 registered teams. These (based upon 2018-19 affiliation data) are:

• Earls Barton – 19 teams
• Finedon Volta – 16 teams
• Irchester Romans Youth – 15 teams
• Wellingborough Old Grammarians – 15 teams
• Wellingborough Town – 17 teams
• Wollaston Victoria – 13 teams

Leagues

Eight leagues cater for clubs and teams in Wellingborough. They offer competitive opportunities for many different players, including mini soccer, youth male, youth female, adult male and adult female. They are:

• Weetabix Youth Football League - 340 teams – central venue and home/away
• Northants Senior Youth League – 17 teams – home and away
• Northamptonshire Combination League (step 7) – 63 teams – home and away
• Northamptonshire Sunday Combination veterans – 18 teams – home and away
• Rushden & District Sunday Football League – 11 teams – home and away
• Nene Sunday League – 53 teams – home and away
• United Counties League (step 5/6)
• Northamptonshire Women & Girls League – 81 teams – home and away

The County FA reports considerable cross boundary migration to/from Wellingborough - a significant proportion of this is due to teams migrating in at mini soccer age (U7 – U10) to play in the Weetabix Youth Football League’s central venue at Wellingborough Old Grammarians’ Memorial Sports Ground.

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 Wellingborough there is one football session specifically for people with a disability. This is delivered by the Northampton Town Community Trust. It is a priority of the County FA to grow and sustain 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. Wellingborough has one FA Wildcats girls football centre (run by Northampton Town Community Trust) and the priority is to grow and sustain this activity.

At nine, Wellingborough’s number of female teams is comparable 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 league for girl's and women's football is the Macron Northamptonshire Women and Girls Football League in which matches are played on a home and away basis. The league is expected to grow and sustain provision for girls and women in future years.

For talented players, the most local FA Regional Talent Club (RTC) is Leicester City FC. 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 team is Birmingham City (WSL). Leicester City Women (WC) also provides 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. Key local providers include Power Play small sided leagues.

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 Wellingborough. It is a priority for the County FA to grow and sustain futsal for male, female, youth and adult players.

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 no FA Just Play centres in Wellingborough. Walking football sessions are delivered by a range of community organisations including the Borough Council. Walking football and Just Play are County FA priorities for further growth and development. Other local recreational football programmes include casual bookings on 3G and sand-based artificial turf pitches throughout the borough.

Informal football

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 Wellingborough is played particularly in the central part of the local authority. Redwell Leisure Centre playing field, Croyland Park and Eastfield Park are key well-used site locations.

The key strengths of local football in Wellingborough include large numbers of affiliated mini soccer, youth and adult football teams playing in sustainable leagues. It is recommended that this is sustained and also encouraged to grow further. However, there are aspects of football provision that are less well developed than local authorities of a similar size; these include female and disability teams. It is therefore recommended that the future football development priorities for Wellingborough are:

1. High quality introduction to football – male, female, disability, futsal
2. Develop clubs and leagues – charter standard, safeguarding and respect
3. Embrace all formats, engage all participants
4. Recruit, develop and support the workforce
5. Develop sustainable football facilities

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 Wellingborough. 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 priority is 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.

There is one existing full-sized (11 v 11) 3G FTP in Wellingborough, located at Redwell Leisure Centre.

The Wellingborough PPS was adopted in 2017. It indicates a shortfall of two full size 3G FTPs following the development of the pitch at Redwell Leisure Centre. This is available for community use and is on the FA Register for 3G FTPs (meaning is is quality checked and can be used for football match play). It is strongly recommended that any provision developed in future is assessed and placed on the Register to enable more match play on 3G.

Given that the only 3G FTP in the Authority is located in the centre of Wellingborough there are provision gaps in the east and west of the area, where there are substantial settlements and corresponding high levels of football demand.

Local consultation reveals common issues with limited availability and long travel distances and the need to address these.

Two possible 3G FTP projects are identified primarily to address provision gaps and cater for presently unmet affiliated football demand. The two projects comprise one full size FTP at Grange Sports Field and a small sided (5 v 5) proposal at Wollaston School. It is also understood that the new Wellingborough East Secondary School (location yet to be identified) has potential to provide a 3G FTP on the school site developed as part of the Wellingborough East SUE (circa 2,800 homes). Exact timescales need to be confirmed.

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 13 grass pitch sites in Wellingborough with three or more full-size pitch equivalents (or with fewer than three pitches but deemed to be of strategic importance). These contain 46 grass pitches. Of these, none are considered to have good quality pitches, seven are of standard quality and six of poor quality. Local consultation highlighted the low quality of existing provision and it is recommended that this is addressed.

Of the 13 key pitch sites referenced, six are prioritised. This will result in quality improvements to 18 pitches. Further to this, a potential new site; Hookham Path, will also require investment in grass pitch improvement. The number of pitches that could be provided here is not yet known.

Six priority projects for potential investment are identified. Pitch quality rating was evidenced by the PPS and ratified by local partners. Prioritisation was based on a rationale of selecting sites in poor condition, that are, or could be well-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 13 key grass pitch sites in Wellingborough with three or more full-size pitch equivalents (or with fewer than three but deemed to be of strategic importance) ten have suitable changing rooms, two require improvement/replacement and one has no facilities and requires a new changing pavilion.

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 there are no indoor facilities that require improvement to develop small-sided football.

Following local consultation, no current potential MUGA opportunities are identified.

Following local consultation, and assisted by the Sport England Green Spaces Mapping Tool, no locations are identified to support small sided informal football at this time.

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

• Borough Council of Wellingborough - Senior Planning Officer, Planning Policy Officer and Sports Development Officer
• Earls Barton United FC - Chairman
• FC Redwell - Chairman
• Finedon Volta Juniors FC - Chairman
• Football Foundation - Regional Lead
• Northampotnshire County FA - Football Development Officer
• Northampton Town FC Community Foundation - CEO
• Northamptonshire Sport - Assistant Director
• Irchester Romans Youth - Chairman
• Wellingborough Whitworth FC - Secretary
• Wellingborough Vicarage Farm - Chairman
• Wollaston School - Head of PE
• Wollaston Victoria Youth - Chairman