New PavilionThe Full Timeline

The new pavilion has been twenty-six years in the making. What follows is the full record — every design stage, every consultation, and every Parish Council decision — with the document behind each one. It is deliberately detailed: the project has been described in many ways over the years, and the surest answer to that is the dated record.

Phase 1: Origins, 1999–2013

A permission granted, and lost. In July 2000 Chichester District Council granted planning permission (ref. WR/00/01400/FUL) for a replacement pavilion. It was never implemented and lapsed in July 2005. Anyone proposing to revive that scheme today would need an entirely new application.

A building past its best. The pavilion dates from 1973. By the late 2000s it had a serious problem with water ingress, and its condition was a standing concern. Photographs taken in November 2013 are the earliest dated record of that condition in the project archive.

A legacy. In the mid-2000s the Association received a bequest from Pat Creighton Smith, given so that the pavilion could in future be properly maintained, developed or renewed. It remains a restricted fund held for exactly that purpose.

The members are asked. A questionnaire commissioned in 2012 went to social club and affiliated sports club members. In April 2013 the responses were consolidated into three categories — minor improvements, extend and improve, and rebuild — and the bulk fell into the middle category. Working the extension option through, the committee found it would need at least 900 square feet of extra space, roughly extending the building twelve feet to the rear, and that a flat roof would worsen its appearance. Weighing that against the condition of the existing structure, the committee concluded that a new building was the better course, and the decision was endorsed at the 2014 AGM.

A sub-committee is formed. On 16 October 2013 the Association agreed to form a Pavilion Improvement Sub-Committee — the chairman plus one member from each club — with its first meeting on 13 November. It reported through a standing “Pavilion Improvements” item at every main committee meeting thereafter.

The first drawings. In December 2013 architect Tomasz Tomaniak of Studio4m produced survey drawings of the existing building and a first option — a single-storey rear extension. Those existing-building drawings are the same two sheets eventually approved by Chichester twelve years later. Within a week the extension option had been superseded by a study looking at whether a replacement could sit further back from the road.

Sources: CDC planning record WR/00/01400/FUL; Association committee minutes 17 April and 16 October 2013; AGM minutes 12 March 2014; project drawing archive.

Phase 2: First designs and the siting problem, 2013–2015

The Parish Council is supportive from the outset. The sub-committee’s two options — extend or rebuild — were presented to the Parish Council in January 2014. The Council discussed them the following month, and the Association’s AGM minutes record the response:

The Parish Council had met in February and discussed the association’s proposals and were very supportive and commended the association on its vision.

Association AGM minutes, 12 March 2014

With no Parish Council minutes published before 2016, this is the earliest documented Council endorsement of the project — within weeks of the first modern drawings.

Engagement continues through 2014 and 2015. In September 2014 the Association’s leadership met the Council’s chairman and Cllr Howard True informally to discuss the latest proposal. That November the committee agreed to meet the Council again to re-affirm the preferred location before approaching Chichester District Council. A further meeting on parking followed in September 2015.

The scheme becomes a replacement. Through 2014 the design developed from an extension into a full replacement — demolish and rebuild to the rear, with changing rooms and a function space at first floor. The site plan of May 2014 set the terms that governed everything after it: the replacement shown 9.5 metres from the centre of the protected tree, exact position subject to arboricultural advice; the car park located to minimise impact on the view north along the Kirdford Road edge of the Green.

Chichester is approached. In January 2015 the Parish Clerk contacted Chichester’s Principal Planning Officer seeking a view before more money was spent on drawings. The protected horse chestnut was already flagged as causing difficulty.

The meeting that fixed the building’s position for a decade. On 27 February 2015 Cllrs Andrew Jackson and Howard True, the Association, Chichester’s Principal Planning Officer and the Clerk met on site. Three options were tabled and two were ruled out. Moving the building to the north side of the Green with an all-weather surface was rejected on the spot — the officer “did not feel that an all-weather surface would be in keeping with the character of the village green.” Moving sport off the Green entirely to land then for sale was rejected in principle by everyone present: village greens “were an important characteristic of the villages in the north of the CDC district; she wouldn’t want to see sport totally removed from the Green, agreed by all.”

What remained was a position immediately behind the existing building — and the protected horse chestnut, with its nine-metre root protection area, determined precisely where:

A location directly abutting Butts Meadow would not be acceptable… A location immediately to the rear of the current location would not be possible because of the protected tree. Therefore, the optimal location would be somewhere between a line extended to the rear from the left flank of the current building to the edge of the RPA.

Principal Planning Officer, Chichester District Council, 27 February 2015

The meeting also set the evidence the project would need for the next six years — an arboricultural report, a Design and Access Statement including a Heritage Statement, a habitats survey, and a Statement of Community Involvement. “It was agreed that a consultation with the community was required.”

A new architect and a new concept. In the second half of 2015 naganjohnson of Waterloo were appointed and produced a wholly new idea: two intersecting volumes — a vernacular pitched, timber-clad block housing the sports facilities, and a lighter, largely transparent bar pavilion set at an angle, with a scorebox at the hinge between them. That two-element concept, and the angle, survive into the building that holds planning permission today.

Parking. In October 2015 Chichester advised that a small car park to the rear was likely to be acceptable in principle provided it was kept to a minimum, screened by the building, and surfaced in grasscrete rather than tarmac. That was an instruction at pre-application stage and an intention in the 2016 scheme; it does not form part of the permission finally granted.

Sources: Association minutes 10 September and 19 November 2014, 16 September 2015; Pavilion Improvement Meeting minutes 27 February 2015; CDC correspondence January and October 2015; project drawing archive.

Phase 3: Endorsement, pre-application and the first consultation, 2016–2017

Unanimous Parish Council support. On 16 February 2016 the Association presented the scheme to Full Council with drawings and a scaled model, before eight members of the public. The Council resolved:

Members unanimously agreed that the Council was supportive of the plans displayed and agreed that pre-application advice should be sought from CDC as the next step.

Parish Council minutes, 16 February 2016

The Association’s own minutes of 9 March 2016 record the same outcome from the other side of the table: “Scheme gained unanimous approval from PC.”

The village votes. On 5 May 2016 the parish held its referendum on the Wisborough Green Neighbourhood Plan: 83.2% in favour, 351 votes to 71. The Plan was made on 9 June 2016, and it records that “the refurbishment of the current building or a re-build has been identified as a necessity within the next few years.” The plan the village voted for names the pavilion.

Pre-application. After an informal review in September 2016 — Chichester’s officer advising that there was “nothing of principle concern that stands out” and encouraging a formal submission — the pre-application (ref. WR/16/03861/PRE) was validated on 1 December 2016. It presented the three-element composition: barn-like traditional volume, contemporary glazed pavilion, and the scorebox acting as the hinge.

Sport England sets the requirements. On 9 January 2017 Sport England advised that the proposal met exception E2 of its playing fields policy, and set out what the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board would require of the changing accommodation. Those requirements drove the building’s internal layout from that point on. The full detail is on the Key Design Decisions page.

The first public consultation. On Saturday 11 February 2017 the pavilion was exhibited in the Village Hall at a joint event with the Traffic Management Plan and the Village Hall project. It was advertised in the January and February editions of Ad Vincula and by A5 flyer to every household in the parish.

127 people attended. Of the 67 who commented on the pavilion, 66 were supportive. The results were reported back to the village in the Parish Council’s Newsletter, Issue 26. Support included four sitting parish councillors. Concerns clustered on the scorebox, the extent of glass and the parking. One resident objected outright.

Chichester’s formal response — and the change that mattered. On 24 April 2017 Chichester issued its pre-application response. Two points shaped everything that followed. The materials palette was to be reconsidered to respond better to the conservation area. And the two elements were to be reversed:

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

This was Chichester’s suggestion, not the Association’s — a point that would need restating many times.

Reported to the Council. The Council heard the pre-application outcome at its Annual Meeting on 16 May 2017, the minutes recording “The key change suggested by the CDC planners was to reverse the building layout, having the glass section away from the housing.”

Fifteen months of iteration. Between June 2017 and September 2018 the design went through ten numbered drafting rounds with Chichester — elevations, sections, contextual views, and in the final round a Village Design Statement viewpoint analysis prepared at the Parish Council’s request. In June 2017 the architects confirmed that the building’s footprint had grown, from roughly 340m² to 400m², principally to meet the Football Association’s changing-room requirements. When asked to reduce it, they cut the third changing room and one of the two officials’ rooms to reach 380m² within a day. This was the first scheme, halted by the Parish Council in 2018 and never submitted as a full planning application. The building that now has permission has a smaller ground footprint, about 310m².

Sources: PC minutes 16 February 2016 and 16 May 2017; Association minutes 9 March 2016; Neighbourhood Plan and referendum result; CDC pre-application response 24 April 2017; Sport England 9 January 2017; PC Newsletter Issue 26.

Phase 4: The Council asks for a redesign, 2018

The presentation. On 16 January 2018 the Association presented the developed design to Full Council, with ten members of the public present, and put seven formal questions to it — on endorsement, funding, the lease, the charitable structure, and the uses the building might support.

The answer. On 6 February the Council asked for a redesign, withdrawing the support it had given unanimously two years earlier — and doing so after the design had been through pre-application with Chichester District Council, which had raised nothing of principle against it. Twelve members of the public attended. The recorded concerns were about the building itself — its size, its position, and the effect on views across the Green:

Members requested that the Sports Association re-visit plans with the architect and provide a revised design; location to prevent physical cutting of the corner, reduced angle of glass element, reduction of rear entrance canopy, retaining vistas, review scoreboard location.

Parish Council minutes, 6 February 2018

Views within the Council differed. One member “liked the design and questioned whether it was actually large enough to futureproof the building”; others were concerned about the effect on the Green. A question was also raised about commercial use of a building on a registered village green — a point the Association answered in writing within weeks: “Please be assured that we do not want the Pavilion to be a place from which commercial enterprises are run and that is not our intent.”

Rotation is tested. At an extraordinary meeting on 7 March the Association presented an orientation study examining whether turning the building would help. It concluded that rotation would reduce the view cone by about 30%, affect the setting of the neighbouring cottage, require more of the Green for parking and turning, and take the building too far from square for the scorers. Its own conclusion: no gain, potentially worse.

The same meeting resolved two things that mattered later — that a new lease should be prepared, and that the Association should establish itself as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation — and constituted the first joint working group of councillors and Association members.

The chairman’s position, in writing. On 27 March 2018, the day after a joint meeting, the Council’s chairman set out where he stood:

Some members of the PC like the design of which I am one; my concerns are to do with scale and position.

A former chairman of the Parish Council, March 2018

The agreed note of that meeting also records that the Council had itself approached Chichester about removing the protected tree, and had been told the current proposed location remained the most suitable.

April. On 17 April the Council decided not to support the design as it stood, finding it contrary to the Neighbourhood Plan’s landscape and open views policy. The minutes record twice that no formal vote was taken. One councillor’s dissent was recorded in the minutes, and another asked “why it had not been a joint venture that would have allowed Parish Council input from the outset.” Members accepted that the Council would need to contribute to the cost of a redesign.

A change of leadership. At the Association’s AGM on 20 June 2018 Michael Gadd was elected Chairman.

Sources: PC minutes 16 January, 6 February, 7 March and 17 April 2018; Association response to the Council, March 2018; orientation study, March 2018; Association AGM minutes 20 June 2018.

Phase 5: The reset — a joint working group, 2018–2019

A charity. On 14 August 2018 Wisborough Green Sports was registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, charity number 1179541, ratified by members at a Special General Meeting in September and operating from 1 November.

The working group. From September 2018 a joint working group — Cllrs Andrew Jackson, Michael Newell and Martyn Watson with Association members — met to define what would be acceptable. It was constituted by the Council, chaired and driven by Cllr Jackson, minuted by the Clerk, and reported to Full Council. Seven meetings were minuted between September 2018 and February 2021.

Its first output was factual: a set of footprint benchmarks establishing what the existing building, the 2016 scheme and the 2018 proposal actually measured — the first time all three had been compared on a common basis.

The village green question is raised. At the working group of 10 October 2018 Cllr Jackson asked whether a larger building could lawfully stand on a registered village green. It was the right question, and it would not be conclusively answered until June 2026.

The envelope. In March 2019 Cllr Jackson drew a building envelope — the outline within which a new design would be acceptable — and shared it with the Association and the architects. The architects then designed inside that line. This is the origin of the building that holds planning permission: the consented scheme is the product of an outline drawn by a parish councillor.

Working together. On Sunday 7 April 2019 the architect travelled down to meet the working group in person, and Cllr Jackson circulated his own summary of the key points to the group and the Clerk that evening.

Approved for consultation. On 16 July 2019 the Council approved the redesigned scheme for public consultation.

Sources: Charity Commission register (1179541); joint working group minutes 24 September and 10 October 2018, 31 January, 20 March and 15 July 2019; PC minutes 16 July 2019.

Phase 6: The second consultation and the Council as applicant, 2019–2020

The second public consultation. On 27 and 28 September 2019 the redesigned scheme was exhibited over a two-day village event attended by around 190 people. The questionnaire was drafted by a parish councillor.

96 responses were received. “About right” was the dominant answer on every key question, and there was a significant majority in favour of replacement. The summary report of 12 October 2019 records the conclusion: “Consultation response gives result with clear direction of support for new design.”

Reported to every household. The full results were carried to every home in the parish in the Parish Council’s Newsletter, Issue 34, in November 2019.

Viability. In January 2020 the Council examined the Association’s finances in confidential session, resolved that the design was financially sustainable, and authorised a second pre-application to Chichester — submitted in the Council’s own name. In March the Council also contributed towards the architects’ fees.

Sources: consultation summary report 12 October 2019; PC Newsletter Issue 34; PC minutes 7 and 21 January 2020; Clerk’s correspondence, March 2020.

Phase 7: Three more design rounds, 2020–2021

The second pre-application (ref. WR/20/00302/PRELS) ran through 2020. A meeting with Chichester in June was followed by a design review with the working group in July and a revised submission.

In December 2020 Chichester came back with five concerns, principally about bulk and massing: the wide cropped gable ends gave a “squat” appearance, and the projecting bar was said to add to the massing and produce a more sprawling footprint, moving away from the two-distinct-elements approach the authority had previously encouraged.

The response, developed over the winter, produced the building that was ultimately consented. The hipped cut-back at the roof apex was removed and the roof divided into two visible elements by a cut carried around the whole building; the canopy was stopped short of the entrance; the bar was made shallower and turned to face the pitches rather than Kirdford Road; ground-floor glazing to that elevation was reduced; the plan was simplified at both levels; and the scorebox was reduced so that it sat below the main ridge.

The scheme came down in size. The submitted design was some 80m² smaller than the version put forward in February 2020 — the reduction taken from the bar, the upper kitchen, the entrance and the terrace.

On 4 February 2021 the Clerk convened a project meeting at which the architect presented comparison drawings and a point-by-point note showing how each of Chichester’s concerns had been addressed.

The Council approves, and becomes the applicant. On 16 February 2021 the Council resolved that it supported the design and that the planning application would be submitted by the Parish Council.

Sources: CDC pre-application 20/00302/PRELS; Design and Access Statement §3.4, September 2021; agent’s covering letter, October 2021; PC minutes 16 February 2021.

Phase 8: The application, and the water years, 2021–2024

Submitted. The application (ref. WR/21/03019/FUL) was submitted on 13 October 2021 with eleven drawings, a Design and Access Statement, a Heritage Statement, two ecological reports, an arboricultural assessment and method statement. Net additional floor area: 248m². Validation in November corrected the fee, which was funded by the Council from the Community Infrastructure Levy.

Publicised to every household. A full page appeared in the November 2021 Ad Vincula, and the Parish Council’s Newsletter Issue 40 — which is distributed inside Ad Vincula — also carried the application. Between them every household in the parish was told.

The scheme is shown as submitted. On Saturday 11 December 2021 an open morning was held in the pavilion from ten until four, at the Council’s request, with the footprint of the new building marked out on the grass so that residents could see its size and position for themselves. Two councillors attended. This was the only public showing of the scheme exactly as submitted.

Statutory consultation. Site notices, neighbour notification and publication of all documents on Chichester’s portal followed. Seven representations were received. The Parish Council reviewed all public comments before resolving to support the application.

The sports bodies respond. On 6 January 2022 Sport England confirmed it did not object, the proposal having met exception 2 of its playing fields policy, and published supporting comments from the Football Foundation and the ECB. The ECB’s comment noted the club’s “three senior XI’s and over 150 juniors regularly participating.”

The Council writes in support. On 18 January 2022 the Parish Council submitted its formal comment:

This project has been identified as a need for the village in the Neighbourhood Plan process … This design has received substantial and majority support from the community.

Wisborough Green Parish Council, 18 January 2022

Then the water years. In September 2021 Natural England had issued its position on water neutrality in the Sussex North supply area, and from 2022 determination of applications across the district stalled. The pavilion application waited while a water strategy was worked through — an Appropriate Assessment in draft by January 2023, Natural England’s response in February, and clearance only in November 2024. Almost three years were lost to an issue that had nothing to do with the design.

The conservation verdict. On 28 November 2024 Chichester’s Conservation and Design officer reported. It is the fullest independent assessment of the design on the record, and it concluded that 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.”

Sources: CDC planning record WR/21/03019/FUL; Sport England 6 January 2022; PC representation 18 January 2022; CDC Conservation and Design 28 November 2024; Ad Vincula November 2021; PC Newsletter Issue 40.

Phase 9: Permission, 2025

A final query on surface water drainage — a consultee response that had sat unanswered since 2022 — was resolved in February 2025, and the case officer began drafting a positive recommendation. The full list of conditions was circulated to the applicant for review the day before signature.

On 9 April 2025 Chichester District Council granted planning permission, 1,274 days after the application was submitted. Seventeen conditions were attached, including condition 16, which restricts the building to use “for a sports pavilion community facility and for no other purpose”. Work must begin by 9 April 2028.

Within a week, the Parish Council resolved to obtain legal advice on whether a building of the approved size could lawfully stand on a registered village green — the question first raised in the working group in October 2018.

Sources: decision notice, 9 April 2025; PC minutes 15 April 2025.

Phase 10: The village green question resolved, 2026

A reset. In January 2026, under a new Chair, the Council met the Association informally and resolved to draw a line under past discussion and work together, and to seek legal opinion on the uses proposed for the building.

Three opinions. The first advice, in February, took a restrictive view — that the only lawful route was deregistration of the land. The Association responded in detail, challenging both that conclusion and the proposition that a charity cannot trade. In March the Council resolved to obtain a second opinion from a solicitor specialising in parish council and village green law. That opinion, received in April, did not agree with the first. Faced with two conflicting opinions, and recognising the scale of the decision, the Council resolved on 21 April to instruct a specialist barrister, and approved the cost on 19 May.

Counsel’s opinion. The barrister reported on 8 June 2026. The Chair summarised it to Full Council:

legal opinion had now been obtained from a Barrister, confirming that a larger building on the Village Green was permissible to support the better enjoyment of the Green, although there was some restriction on the activities that were permitted within the building. Members agreed that the legal opinion supported a larger Sports Pavilion on the Green.

Parish Council minutes, 16 June 2026

The Council votes in favour. On 16 June 2026, before eighteen members of the public, the Parish Council voted 6–1 to support the building of the new pavilion. Two conditions were attached to that support: all funding must be secured before construction begins, and the activities provided should not compete with the Village Hall.

The Council also resolved on what comes next: a joint communication to residents covering construction and operating costs, permitted activities, Community Infrastructure Levy expenditure and fundraising plans, with an option to respond anonymously — and an information event, with the footprint of the new building marked out on the Green.

Where the project stands. Planning permission is in place and the legal question that shadowed the project for eight years has been answered. The joint communication and information event are planned for September 2026. A fresh cost exercise is under way, and its figures will be published when complete. See the Funding page for the project’s finances.

Sources: PC minutes 20 January, 17 February, 17 March, 21 April, 19 May and 16 June 2026; counsel’s opinion, 8 June 2026.