New PavilionKey Design Decisions

The design of the new pavilion was not settled in one go, and very little of it was a free choice. Its size comes from the minimum standards the sports’ governing bodies set; its shape comes from an attempt to reduce apparent bulk; and several of its most-discussed features were asked for by Chichester District Council’s planners rather than chosen by the clubs.

Everything below is drawn from documents in the public planning record.

The size was set by the sports

The starting point is that the 1973 building fails modern requirements. It has no disabled access at all, one set of showers, and changing that cannot meet safeguarding rules or support mixed use.

In consultation with sporting bodies and grant organisations we find it falls short in many other aspects including safeguarding and equality. For instance, there is no disabled access to the building or the upper floor, there is only one set of showers and changing facilities do not allow for appropriate safeguarding legislation or any form of mixed showering.

Agent’s covering letter with the planning application, October 2021

Consultation with the Parish Council, the FA and the ECB led to further requirements over location, footprint, changing room sizes and many more.

Agent’s covering letter with the planning application, October 2021

The clearest public statement of what actually drives the floor area was the list exhibited to the village at the September 2019 consultation:

The sport governing bodies set out minimum requirements for safeguarding, diversity & access. It is the duty of WGS to comply with these and they are the minimum requirements for grant funding. They include: Minimum sizes of key rooms such as changing rooms; Provision of essential facilities such as bar, storage, office and function space; Enough toilets and appropriate changing space; Positioning and orientation in relation to the playing areas; Certain elements of layout e.g. position of changing rooms; Suitable safe access for all abilities (lifts, ramps, corridor sizes etc); Disabilities and Gender Equality Legislation; Facilities to support the functioning of the building (boilers etc); Appropriate safe storage for bins, rollers and empty barrels; Function space to ensure the building supports the needs of the clubs.

“What Drives the Physical Requirements”, September 2019 consultation presentation

It is worth being clear about why those standards bind, because the 2019 wording above mentions grant funding and that is only half the story. The Green is a playing field in planning law, which makes Sport England a statutory consultee on any development affecting it. Its default position is to object. A building that fell short of the governing bodies’ specifications would not have been accepted as properly supporting the playing field — and an objection from the statutory sports consultee is an obstacle a council can permit against only with difficulty. Meeting the standards was therefore a condition of getting planning permission at all, not simply a condition of qualifying for grants.

And the size came down. The consented scheme is 508m² — around 80m² smaller than the version submitted a year earlier:

The current design (as submitted in February 2021) is some 80m² smaller than that submitted in February 2020.

Agent’s covering letter with the planning application, October 2021

What was reduced: the bar (90m² to 68m²), the upper kitchen (52m² to 28m²), the entrance, and the terrace (87m² to 73m²). The club room and external storage grew. Notably, the building’s height came down even as floor area rose — a larger floor area did not produce a taller building.

Changing rooms

Changing rooms are not a matter of preference, and not merely a funding question. Because the Green is a playing field, Sport England had to be satisfied with the building before the application could succeed — and it made compliance with the governing bodies’ specifications an explicit expectation:

Sport England stipulated that the interior layout of changing rooms must be designed with reference to the Football Foundation guidance note on changing accommodation, the Football Association’s and English Cricket Board’s technical specifications as well as Sport England’s own design guide. As such, the changing room and sports elements of the pavilion layout have been designed with continued reference to these documents, in addition to specific consultation with each of the governing bodies.

Design and Access Statement §3.5, September 2021

The existing building’s shortfall, in the same document’s words:

Both changing rooms do not meet the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) requirements for size, functionality or orientation.

Design and Access Statement §3.1, September 2021

The consented scheme provides three team changing rooms (21m², 20m² and 20m²), a separate officials’ and umpires’ room of 7m², showers and WCs within the changing areas, and a separate “dirty” entrance taking players straight to the changing rooms — serving men’s, boys’ and girls’ cricket, football and stoolball.

Those room sizes are worth measuring against the published standards, because they are not generous:

Two rooms each with 20sqm for changing space, benches and bag storage.

England and Wales Cricket Board, Technical Specification TS5 (2009), p.32

Sport England’s own Clubhouse Design Guidance Notes (2016) set minimum changing room sizes of 20m² for cricket and 16m² for football. The pavilion’s changing rooms are 20–21m² each — the governing body minimum, not above it.

The requirements were argued over, and the record shows it. The Football Foundation’s published comment questioned the provision:

we would question the need for 3 team changing rooms, as it’s a 1 pitch site, so just 2 changing rooms needed. Would also recommend an additional officials changing room.

The Football Foundation, published within Sport England’s response, 6 January 2022

The scheme kept three rooms and added the officials’ room as recommended. The case for the third room is not that two sports share a day — cricket and football run in different seasons — but that juniors and mixed-sex teams playing within those same fixtures need changing space of their own, and that on club days such as President’s Day several teams of differing ages and both sexes use the ground across the day. The size was argued down as well as up.

The outcome of that process is what allowed the application to proceed: having consulted the Football Foundation and the ECB, Sport England was satisfied and did not object. Had the changing provision not met the specifications, the statutory sports consultee would have been objecting to a larger building on a playing field — and it is difficult to see the permission surviving that.

A playing field, and a statutory consultee

Two separate legal designations apply to the Green, and they do different jobs:

• A registered village green, which governs what may lawfully be built there and how the building may be used. This is the subject of the legal opinions obtained in 2025–26.
• A playing field within the meaning of the planning rules, which made Sport England a statutory consultee on the application.

It is understood that the proposal prejudices the use, or leads to the loss of use, of land being used as a playing field or has been used as a playing field in the last five years, as defined in The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 (Statutory Instrument 2015 No. 595). The consultation with Sport England is therefore a statutory requirement.

Sport England, 6 January 2022, ref PA/21/SE/CHI/60391

Sport England’s default position is to oppose development on playing fields unless one of five exceptions is met. This proposal met exception 2:

Having assessed the application, Sport England is satisfied that the proposed development meets exception 2 of our playing fields policy, in that: “The proposed development is for ancillary facilities supporting the principal use of the site as a playing field, and does not affect the quantity or quality of playing pitches or otherwise adversely affect their use.”

Specifically, the proposal is for the replacement of the existing pavilion with a larger building although broadly on the same footprint, on a part of the site that is not capable of being used for, or as part of a formal playing pitch, and will provide modern and appropriate facilities to support the cricket and football pitches to the south. Having consulted with them, the proposal is supported by the Football Foundation and the ECB.

This being the case, Sport England does not wish to raise an objection to this application.

Sport England, 6 January 2022

Sport England’s phrase “broadly on the same footprint” describes where the building sits, not how big it is: the new pavilion stands in the position and orientation of the old one, but it covers more ground. The extent of that is set out on The Plans.

The statutory sports consultee examined a building it described in its own words as larger than the one it replaces — and did not object. To be plain about it: the new pavilion does cover more ground than the existing building. What Sport England had to be satisfied of was that the facilities properly support the playing field, and that is exactly what the governing bodies’ changing, access and layout standards exist to define. The design had to meet those standards to earn the non-objection.

The ECB’s published comment addressed the community dimension:

The ECB is fully supportive of Wisborough Green CC’s aspirations to replace its pavilion with a new, high-quality and modern facility. The club runs significant junior and senior cricket activity from the Green, with three senior XI’s and over 150 juniors regularly participating, and a new facility will greatly benefit its members and the local community.

ECB, published within Sport England’s response, 6 January 2022

Sport England attached its standard caveat, which is worth reproducing:

The absence of an objection to this application… cannot be taken as formal support or consent from Sport England or any National Governing Body of Sport to any related funding application.

Sport England, 6 January 2022

Two elements and a hinge

The building’s shape comes from a deliberate attempt to avoid a single bulky block. The fullest expression of the idea is in the 2016 pre-application submission:

the extended facilities required by the clubs, we felt, would make for a bulky building if we attempted to accommodate them all within a similar form. Separating the back-of house sports activities (dirty!) from the viewing and catering offer (clean!) allowed us to have two main volumes, both of smaller mass. The facades embrace the Green by forming an angle between the main volumes and this creates a sense of inclusion for those gathering in front of the building.

Pre-Application Submission §5.2, November 2016

So the kink in the plan exists to reduce apparent bulk and to open the building towards the Green. The larger volume takes its cue from the village rather than from cricket:

The primary and larger element is a vernacular building, taking direct reference from buildings around the Green and in the wider area… It does not attempt to directly replicate the “cricket pavilion” building typology as although cricket is one of the main sports in the village, it is not the primary focus – the pavilion will be shared by other sports and the architecture should not favour one in particular.

Pre-Application Submission §5.2, November 2016

In the consented scheme:

The final proposal is conceived as two vernacular forms that enclose a more contemporary glazed pavilion, the terrace of which extends from an opening in the roof forms.

Design and Access Statement §4.3, September 2021

The pavilion hinges at the corner of the football field with the service elements of the building’s programme projecting to the rear in a similar vernacular form.

Design and Access Statement §4.4, September 2021

The changes Chichester asked for

Several of the building’s most-discussed features were requested by the planning authority.

2017 — the elements were reversed. Chichester asked for the smaller glazed element to move to the east and the larger built form to the west, taking bar and balcony activity away from neighbouring houses:

The re-profiling of the building so that the smaller projecting element was now on the eastern side, and reduced in size, with the larger built form on the west, appeared to offer improvements over the originally submitted scheme in opening up the space on the green and moving the activity associated with the bar/balcony element away from neighbouring properties to the west.

CDC pre-application response WR/16/03861/PRE, 24 April 2017

The consequence for privacy is measurable:

views from the terrace are now restricted onto the field of play to the south or towards the only edge of the green not bounded by houses, to the north and east. The closest dwelling to the viewing terrace is 51m away.

Design and Access Statement §5.5, September 2021

2020–21 — the massing was broken up. Chichester’s December 2020 feedback objected to a “squat” appearance and a “sprawling footprint” and asked for the two-distinct-elements principle to be reasserted. The response is recorded point by point: the hipped cut-back was removed, the canopy stopped short, the bar made shallower and turned to face the pitches, ground-floor glazing reduced, the plan simplified, and the scorebox reduced and made subservient to the ridge.

The concept of two distinct elements of the design is emphasised by the way the roof is divided into two elements when viewed from the front. The cut is introduced midway up the roof which breaks up the mass of the pitched roof. This line carries around the whole building.

Design and Access Statement §3.4, September 2021

Rotating the building was tested and rejected. An orientation study in 2018 found that turning the building would have cut the view cone by around 30%, harmed the setting of the neighbouring cottage, required more of the Green for parking and turning, and taken the building too far from square for the scorers. Its conclusion was that there was no gain, and potentially a worse result.

Parish Council meeting paper, 7 March 2018

Materials

The 2016 palette was deliberately contemporary, and Chichester rejected it:

The materiality of the scheme should be reconsidered to respond better to the vernacular of the conservation area.

CDC pre-application response, April 2017, as summarised in Design and Access Statement §3.4

The consented palette is timber and slate. The material choice also does work on the building’s height — the September 2019 consultation noted the aim of a “ridge height as low as possible for the building footprint (slate tiles allow…)”.

The Design and Access Statement sets out the reasoning in full — and it is worth noting that affordability for a village charity was one of the stated grounds for the choice:

The material appearance of the pavilion has been continually developed in line with the advice of Wisborough Green Parish Council and the Local Authority at pre-application stage. While various palettes were tested in 2D and 3D, the proposal seeks to harmoniously fit into the context of the Village through the simplicity of using a single material for most of the external envelope.

The solid elements of proposal will be finished in Larch timber cladding and has been chosen as such for the following reasons:

• The material serves as a clear reference to the vernacular timber-clad buildings that dot the village and is suitable for its setting the Wisborough Green Conservation Area
• It is robust enough, with a lifespan of at least 50 years, for its exposed location on the green
• The timber would be responsibly sourced from sustainable forests
• The material is easy to maintain and naturally weathers to a grey patina over time to furrher [sic] sit harmoniously within its context on the green
• The material would be relatively affordable for WGS, who will have limited resources and funding.

The roof covering of the pavilion will be slate tiles due to their timeless quality and robustness as well as their suitability for the local material character of the village.

Detailing of window frames, cills, copings, rainwater goods etc. would be in matching powder coated metal (zinc/aluminium).

Design and Access Statement §4.5 “Materiality”, September 2021

The strongest independent verdict on the design came from Chichester’s own conservation officer:

The application architects have gone through a thorough design process that has considered the character and appearance of the surroundings as well as the functional requirements of the new building. As a result the newly designed pavilion will have an appreciably higher level of design quality than the current pavilion… The size and mass is however carefully broken up across several different axis… The chamfered plan form of the building allows some of the width to move back in views and not present as a single wide elevation. Despite its increased size the new building sits low in the landscape and would not be assertive in important longer views of the conservation area…

Given the design approach and the impacts referred to above the proposals would enhance the character and appearance of the Wisborough Green Conservation Area and cause no harm to the special architectural or historic interest of nearby listed buildings.

Owen Broadway, CDC Conservation and Design, 28 November 2024

The phrase “chamfered plan form” is the conservation officer crediting the kink.

Access, sustainability and the limits on use

Access. Inclusivity was built into the brief rather than added to it:

Inclusivity was a key part of the concept behind the proposal for a new sports pavilion for Wisborough Green, so accessibility was considered at every point of the design process. A DDA W.C. is provided on the ground floor, and the building and its environs are fully DDA compliant with level access at the entrance doors. There is a DDA lift for access to the first floor and roof terrace.

Design and Access Statement §5.2 “Access Strategy”, September 2021

Set against that, the existing building’s position is stark — in the words of the agent’s letter submitted with the application, “there is no disabled access to the building or the upper floor”. The ECB’s published comment noted that “the lift and disability access will provide enhanced access for all members…”.

Sustainability. A ground source heat pump is proposed as the main energy source, alongside modern insulation and build standards. It is worth being precise here: condition 6 of the consent is the only renewables obligation actually imposed, so the heat pump is the proposal rather than a planning requirement.

• The proposed pavilion will have much improved insulation and more efficient means of heating its interior, reducing energy consumption.
• A ground source heat pump uses ambient heat to provide a less energy intensive way of producing heat.
• Changing rooms will be naturally ventilated with openable glazing.
• The proposal will use locally sourced materials and building techniques where appropriate.
• Contemporary materials and techniques are sensitively introduced to produce a more dynamic design that is better prepared for the needs of the modern climate
• Rooflights in the clubhouse, high-level glazing on the ground floor and extensive glazing in the bar pavilion provides natural light and limit the need for artificial lighting. They will also be fitted with blinds to prevent light pollution in accordance with Wisborough Green dark skies policy.
• The materials proposed will require little maintnance [sic] and will self-wear to the desired finish.

Design and Access Statement §5.1 “Sustainability Considerations”, September 2021

One detail there is worth drawing out: the glazing is to be fitted with blinds specifically to comply with Wisborough Green’s own dark skies policy — the design answering a village policy rather than an imposed one.

Water neutrality. The Sussex North water neutrality position is what held up determination of the application for nearly three years, and the scheme had to demonstrate neutrality before it could be decided.

The limits on use. Finally, the design is bounded by what the Green allows. Condition 16 of the permission restricts the building to use “for a sports pavilion community facility and for no other purpose”.