Kent council sets out plan for outdoor sports pitches and facilities

A Kent district council has produced a Playing Pitch and Outdoor Sports Facilities Strategy — a formal evidence document that will shape decisions about football pitches, cricket grounds, changing rooms and other outdoor sports spaces for years to come. It’s tied to the Local Plan, the statutory document that sets out how an area will grow and develop over the long term. The logic is straightforward enough: as new housing goes up and more people move in, someone needs to make sure there are enough pitches to go round.

The work followed Sport England guidance — specifically its Playing Pitch Strategy Guidance and its Assessing Needs and Opportunities Guidance for wider outdoor sports. That meant looking at the quantity, quality and accessibility of what already exists, measuring it against current and future demand, and working out where the gaps are.

For local clubs and residents, the strategy creates a formal record of their needs and usage. Not glamorous, but it matters. It can support bids for better pitch quality, improved maintenance, and facilities with secured community use — access that’s guaranteed for local groups rather than resting on goodwill arrangements that can evaporate when circumstances change.

The strategy will also influence where new sports facilities are built as development comes forward under the Local Plan. It sits alongside open space strategies and indoor sports assessments to give the council a fuller picture of what people actually need.

For planning and leisure officers, it provides a basis for prioritising capital spending and chasing external funding. It also aligns sports provision with the council’s broader ambitions around health and active lifestyles.

Kent districts including Ashford, Sevenoaks, Swale and Dover have produced similar strategies, which together help shape the county’s wider outdoor sports network and feed into work with Kent County Council and national governing bodies of sport.

What happens next: The strategy will feed directly into the council’s emerging Local Plan and guide future decisions on sports facility investment and planning applications.