Local Football Facility Plan Wychavon

Wychavon is in the West Midlands region.

The current population of the authority (ONS 2017 Mid-Year Estimate) is 125,378. This is expected to rise to 141,244 by 2039.

Wychavon is ranked 21 out of 30 LAs in the region, and 191 out of 326 LAs nationally on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (ONS).

Wychavon's ethnic composition is primarily white (98%). This is higher than the national average (85.4%).

The proportion of Wychavon’s population represented by the BAME community is 2%. This is below the national average (14.6%).

Local authority

Wychavon shares some public services with Malvern Hills District Council and the two work together closely. The two share a Chief Executive/Managing Director and a joint senior management team, whilst each council retains its own political structures and distinct identities, the joint management structure allows them to maximise the opportunity to deliver a wide range of good value services and operate and develop shared services and partnership arrangements.

The South Worcester Development Plan (SWDP) is a planning framework jointly prepared by the three authorities of Malvern Hills, Wychavon and Worcester City. It forms the heart of the new Local Development Framework and considers the long-term vision and objectives for South Worcestershire. The SWDP identifies three significant urban extensions to Worcester whereby a large part of the City's housing requirement will be delivered within neighbouring Malvern Hills and Wychavon districts. This includes significant development of new neighbourhoods at West Worcester (2500+ homes in Malvern Hills) and South Worcester (2500+ homes in Malvern Hills and Wychavon) as well as new homes in North East Malvern (circa 850 homes). Together these three developments are considered likely to generate increased demand for football facilities across Wychavon and the border areas, with significant new playing field sites planned at all three.

The Authority Playing Pitch Strategy was undertaken in conjunction with Malvern Hills and Worcester City; the South Worcestershire PPS was adopted in 2016. The key findings and stated overarching priorities are to: increase the level of full-sized (11v11) 3G FTP provision in the district, improve the quality of grass pitches at key sites via improved maintenance regimes and to maximise opportunities for investment into outdoor sports provision which will arise from significant forthcoming housing growth in Worcester and its proposed urban extensions, including within Wychavon.

County Football Association

Wychavon is covered by Worcestershire 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). There is no active CCO in Wychavon.

Local leisure operator

Wychavon Leisure is the key leisure operator in Wychavon. It currently operates three sports centres:

• Droitwich Spa Leisure Centre - 4-court sports hall. It also manages the facilities at Droitwich Spa High School, including a full size artificial grass pitch and grass pitches.
• Evesham Leisure Centre - 4-court sports hall
• Pershore Leisure Centre - 3-court sports hall

Local consultation

This has taken place with a diverse set of community groups in Wychavon. Seven individuals (representing seven local organisations) were spoken to. The agencies consulted include:

• Inkberrow
• Pershore Town 88
• Littleton FC

(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. Wychavon has a total of 207 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 Wychavon, seven clubs have more than 10 registered teams. These (based upon 2017-18 affiliation data) are:

• Droitwich Spa - 33 teams
• Evesham Utd - 27 teams
• Inkberrow Eagles - 16 teams
• Pershore Town 88 - 11 teams
• Broadway Utd - 10 teams
• Breadon - 10 teams
• Eckington Juniors - 10 teams

Leagues

Two leagues operate in Wychavon. They offer competitive opportunities for many different players, including youth and adults. While there is no specific league opportunity for disability and female football within Wychavon, suitable provision is made in neighbouring Worcester and Malvern. The largeer local leagues serving the Wychavon area (2018-19) include:

• Ambassador Evesham League – 237 teams– home and away
• Evesham & District Sunday League– 30 teams– home and away

The County FA reports some cross boundary migration to/from Wychavon primarily due to teams playing in leagues in the Birmingham area.

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 Wychavon there are two football teams / sessions specifically for people with a disability. 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. Wychavon has six FA Wildcats girls football centres and the priority is to grow this activity.

At 13, Wychavon’s number of female teams is lower than 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 Mercian Fortis League in which matches are played on a home and away basis. It is expected to grow its provision in future years. The local adult female league is the Midwest Counties League; its matches are played on a home and away basis and it is expected to sustain its provision in future years.

For talented players, the most local FA Regional Talent Club (RTC) is West Bromwich Albion which is located in the Birmingham County FA area. 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 which 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.

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 Wychavon. It is a priority for the County FA to grow the sport 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 Wychavon. Walking football sessions are delivered by a range of community organisation such as football clubs. Walking football and Just Play are County FA priorities for further growth and development.

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 Wychavon is played particularly in the north and south parts of the local authority in key settlements of Droitwich Spa and Evesham.

The key strengths of local football in Wychavon include youth provision; it is recommended that this is sustained and also encouraged to grow further. However, provision gaps do exist and there are aspects of provision that do not fully reflect those in local authorities of a similar size. These include female, disability, adult and recreational football.

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

1. Female
2. Disability
3. Adult
4. Recreational opportunity

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 Wychavon. 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 has been 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 just one full sized (11 v 11) 3G FTP broadly available for football in Wychavon at Pershore High School. This is available for community use and is on the FA Register for 3G FTPs (meaning it is quality checked and can be used for football match play). There are two further full sized 3G FTPs at Sixways Stadium (Worcester Warriors RFC) however these are predominantly programmed for rugby union activity with little capacity for football, though some play is accommodated. There are no small sided 3G FTPS.

Football Foundation funding was recently secured for the creation of a new full sized 3G FTP at The Spiers & Hartwell Jubilee Stadium (Evesham Town FC) in place of one of the existing grass pitches on the adjacent playing field. The wider project will also see the development of a new changing pavilion, with work to begin towards the second half of 2019.

As noted above, Wychavon has a PPS undertaken in 2015 (adopted 2016) in conjunction with other South Worcestershire authorities Worcester City and Malvern Hills. This indicated a shortfall of at least three full sized 3G FTPs.

However, on the basis that there are 207 teams in Wychavon in 2018/19, there is deemed to be a requirement for five full sized 3G FTPs. Given the one full sized 3G FTP in the District and the second under development the shortfall is, thus, three full-sized 3G FTPs. Following consultation it has been determined that development of two full size 3G FTPs and two small-sided 3G FTPs is preferable in order to ensure a greater spread of facilities enabling accessibility across the remainder of the District.

The Council states it's intention to develop a full size 3G FTP on the existing post and rail grass pitch at King George V Playing Fields (Droitwich). This is anticipated to be a non-standard build and consequently is planned to be delivered outside of the Football Foundation framework without partnership funding. Thus, this should be pursued as a planned project, however is not a priority project for Football Foundation investment through the LFFP. However, there is requirement for a new changing pavilion to service both the planned full size 3G FTP and proposed development of a Step 5 compliant grass pitch adjacent to the 3G FTP. These elements of the wider project (changing pavilion and grass pitch improvement) are identified as LFFP priority projects.

Existing 3G FTPs are located in the south and centre of the local area. There are facilities gaps in the north and east leaving areas with substantial level of population uncatered for. Local consultation confirms the common issues with limited availability and it is recommended that this is addressed.

Three priority projects for potential investment into 3G FTPs are identified, notwithstanding the need for a further full size 3G FTP, planned to be delivered at King George V Playing Fields (Droitwich) without Football Foundation funding:

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, many 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 17 grass pitch sites in Wychavon with three or more full-size pitch equivalents (or with fewer than three pitches but deemed to be of strategic importance). These contain 61 grass pitches. Of these, two are considered to have good quality pitches, 13 are of standard quality and two of poor quality.

At one of the 17 grass pitch sites identified above (Sands Road, Inkberrow) two new pitches are to be developed as an extension to the existing site that will also require pitch improvements (levelling and drainage works).

Local consultation does not highlight any particular common issues with regard to access to, or the quality of, natural grass pitches, other than challenges of rurality and the limited number of playing field sites in some smaller settlements - and the concomitant need to travel to access provision.

Of the 17 key pitch sites referenced above it was determined that 15 should be prioritised for improvements. This will result in quality improvements to 44 pitches:

Fifteen priority projects for potential investment are identified. Pitch quality rating was evidenced by PPS and ratified by local partners. Prioritisation was based on a rationale of selecting sites that had the most pitches and that were, or had the 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 17 key grass pitch sites in Wychavon with three or more full-size pitch equivalents (or with fewer than three pitches but of strategic importance), 12 have suitable changing rooms, four require improvement/replacement and one has no facilities and requires a new changing room.

There will be a need to not only replace the existing poor quality changing building at King George V Playing Fields (Droitwich) but to extend its capacity in order to support increased footfall generated by delivering 3G FTP provision.

Similarly, the creation of new pitches as an extension to the existing Sands Road site in Inkberrow will create a need to extend changing room capacity within the existing Football Foundation funded pavilion onsite.

Jubilee Playing Field in Crowle is the only key site without changing facilities, though toilet facilities are accessible within the main village hall. The Town Council has aspirations to develop changing provision onsite as an extension to the existing village hall building to support use of the adjacent playing field.

Five 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 & 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 reveals that there are no indoor facilities that require improvement to develop small sided football.

There is potential opportunity to refurbish the existing MUGA at Woodlands Open Space. It is in an area with a significant local population, limited green space and reportedly high local demand for informal football.

Following local consultation, three locations are identified to support small sided informal football. Here, the rationale is primarily based around local parks and open green spaces with suitable space / areas to increase informal football:

• Abbey Park (Pershore)- this is a key large park with other play and recreational provision with existing informal football goalposts on one section by St Andrew's Road.
• Charity brook Park (Evesham) - this is a small park with adventure play area within a housing estate in Evesham. It previously accommodated two adult football pitches and has existing building and car parking provision.
• Steynores Avenue (Droitwich) - this is a small playing field within a housing estate, with adjacent play area.

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:

• Football Development Manager - Worcestershire FA
• Engagement Manager - Football Foundation
• Planning Manager - Sport England
• Sports Development Officer (Community Development) - Wychavon District Council
• Chief Executive Officer - Sports Partnership Herefordshire & Worcestershire
• Facility Relationship Manager - England Hockey
• Droitwich Spa Boys & Girls
• Pershore Town 88
• Littleton FC
• Inkberrow FC