Provision of Sport and Recreation Facilities

7.14 In seeking to provide an appropriate recreation and leisure infrastructure, the Council recognises that scarce and expensive facilities need to have as wide a range of uses and users as possible, an example being the wider community use of schools and school playing fields and multi-purpose pitches (See Policy CF 3 ‘Use of Schools for Community Purposes’). The Council will also encourage privately owned facilities to be widely open to public use, particularly at a price that is affordable to all, in the interests of equal opportunities and to facilitate the efficient and effective use of land. In the case of the use of land in school use, there is a need to seek to ensure that facilities would remain open to wide public use in the event of the control of a site passing to local school management. The Council has developed a Sports Strategy for the District entitled ‘Fit for the Future’ (2001). The aim of the strategy is to give vision and direction for sport over the next 5 years within Calderdale. It sets out what the Council would like to achieve and establishes a framework for other organisations within the community in an attempt to bring about greater partnerships and co-ordination throughout the District.

7.15 The Council acknowledges that its existing swimming pools are in certain instances not well located to best meet the present or future needs of communities, or are in need of extension or even replacement. The Council will assess swimming pool provision and subject to the availability of resources will seek to remedy recognised deficiencies. In addition, the Council has steadily built up a range of sports halls and facilities. However, it is now recognised that this range is in need of extension and improvement.

7.16 New sites and buildings providing recreation infrastructure such as all-weather sports pitches, should create no unacceptable environmental, amenity, traffic or other problems and must be well served by good quality public transport. A particular issue that needs careful consideration is the siting and design of any external floodlighting, the relevant policy against which a proposal will be assessed being Policy EP 5 ‘Control of External Lighting’.

7.17 New facilities which are likely to attract large numbers of visitors and are thus considered to be key town centre facilities (such as swimming pools and major sports centres) will be expected to conform to the sequential tests advocated in PPS 6 ‘Planning for Town Centres’ (2005). The following Policy will apply:-

Policy OS 4

The Provision of Sports and Recreation Facilities

New or replacement sports and recreation facilities or extensions to existing facilities will be permitted provided that:-
  1. the development relates well in scale, character and function to the locality;
  2. the proposal does not adversely affect the nature conservation value of the site;
  3. the development is accessible by good quality public transport as existing or with enhancement;
  4. the proposal does not create any unacceptable environmental, amenity, safety, highway or other problems;
  5. where appropriate (such as major recreation facilities) the development shall be sited in accordance with the following preferred sequence of locations:-

FIRSTLY – within town centres as defined on the Proposals Map where sites or buildings suitable for conversion are available;

SECONDLY – in edge-of-centre locations where no suitable central sites or buildings are available;

THIRDLY – in out-of-centre locations which are, or can be made accessible, by a choice of means of transport where no suitable sites or buildings are available in either of the above areas; and

  1. the proposal is consistent with all other relevant UDP policies.

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