New PavilionFunding
The construction estimate, what has been raised and pledged so far, and where the rest will come from.
Fundraising progress
- Raised
- £104,800
- Pledged
- £24,000
- Secured so far
- £128,800
A target will be set once the current cost exercise is complete.
- Raised combines the designated New Pavilion fund and the Pat Creighton Smith bequest, both per the FY2024 accounts.
- Pledged is Community Infrastructure Levy money committed by the Parish Council to date.
Where the money comes from
The project is expected to be funded from a combination of sources:
- The New Pavilion fund — the charity's designated fund, standing at £32,800 in the FY2024 accounts, built up by village fundraising year on year.
- The Pat Creighton Smith bequest — a restricted fund now standing at around £72,000 (£69,205 in the FY2024 accounts, plus interest accrued since), held for pavilion maintenance, development or renewal.
- Developer contributions — a significant sum is anticipated from S106 and Community Infrastructure Levy money arising from development in the parish, and the Parish Council has already committed CIL funds to the project.
- Chichester District Council — the district council supports facilities of this kind directly. In May 2026 it approved almost £1m to replace the White Pavilion in Priory Park, a comparable cricket pavilion being rebuilt to England and Wales Cricket Board guidance.
- Fundraising — RunWisborough and village events; in 2022 alone, RunWisborough, the Platinum Jubilee events and a golf day raised £18,000 for the fund.
- Grants — we will be seeking grant funding and have engaged a professional grant adviser, supported by a detailed business case and fundraising plan. More details will follow in due course.
A fresh cost exercise is under way. Until it reports we are not putting a construction figure into the public domain — an estimate quoted before the work is done tends to be treated as a price, and this project has been damaged before by numbers repeated out of context. The figures above are what has actually been secured.
We are also in detailed discussions with a number of individuals about donations, large and small, and would welcome expressions of interest from anyone else who would like to help. Please email chair@wisboroughsports.org.
The business case, in brief
This summarises the charity’s business case as it currently stands. The case is still evolving and remains subject to further discussion with the Parish Council, and the figures behind it will firm up as the cost exercise completes. This page will be updated as it develops.
Why a business case, and what it’s for
Wisborough Green Sports is a registered charity (no. 1179541) whose purpose is the promotion of community participation in healthy recreation for the benefit of the inhabitants of Wisborough Green and the surrounding area. The business case sets out how the new pavilion will serve that purpose for the next 75 years — and how the building will pay its own way once built.
A building for the whole village
The new pavilion is designed as more than changing rooms and a post-match bar. The case sets out how a sports pavilion built to modern standards can support healthy recreation across the village:
- Growing the clubs. Cricket is thriving — over 200 juniors, women’s and girls’ sections developing, and ambitions for ladies’ teams across all age groups. Football plans a second XI, a bigger junior section, women’s and girls’ football, veterans and walking football. Touch rugby continues at the heart of the Green, and the case allows for stoolball’s return, with junior and women’s sections envisaged. A running and cycling section is already emerging.
- Room to grow. What limits the clubs now is practical: one set of showers, no accessible changing, and nowhere for juniors or women’s teams to change separately. Better facilities let the sections they already run expand, and welcome players the current building effectively turns away.
- Health and connection. Wisborough Green’s population is older than the national average and more than a quarter of households are single-occupancy. The case draws on national and county evidence that social connection and local activity measurably improve health — and positions the pavilion as the village’s answer: somewhere to be active, meet people and stay connected without needing to travel.
- Club and village occasions. Club dinners and awards nights (currently held outside the village), quiz nights, and big sporting moments on screen — the events that already fund WGS, in a building finally able to host them properly.
Within the rules of the Green
The building’s use is bound by the constraints that protect the Green: the planning permission restricts it to use as a sports pavilion and community facility and nothing else, the lease ties it to supporting sport and recreation on the Green. Every activity in the final case will be tested against those rules before it is adopted. The case is explicit that WGS is not seeking to maximise footfall — the aim is infrastructure that lets village sport and healthy recreation thrive, introduced gradually so new activities embed naturally into village life.
A building that pays its own way
The financial section is built from WGS’s audited accounts and models three scenarios, from a cautious baseline (today’s activities plus modest membership growth) through to fuller community use. In every scenario the building is designed to cover its own running costs through membership, the members’ bar and community events — with a salaried steward managing the building day to day. Full figures, alongside construction costs and the funding plan, will be published when the current costing work is complete.
Sustainability
A ground source heat pump as the main energy source, modern insulation and build standards throughout — a building dramatically more efficient than the 1973 pavilion it replaces, designed to remain appropriate as the village grows.