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Establishing a New Recreational Site 

Having persevered and creating playing fields for over 80 years, we’ve gained a considerable amount of experience in the processes involved. Whether you’re focusing on traditional sports fields, toddlers’ playing areas or even fields to walk in, a number of points need to be considered. Our checklist is a guide to these points and advice on how to proceed.

Local group

Projects like this are most successful if a local group is organised to support it. This group could be a local council, a club or even residents and other interested parties. It’s important at this stage to decide what role the group will have. The group may form solely to push for the creation of a playing space and leave the management to someone else or they may want to establish themselves long term to run and manage the field.

Need

Establishing the right need for the area is crucial - is there a call for sports pitches, recreational spaces or do young children need a safe, supervised play area? If you're in a rapidly growing area, potential field spaces could disappear fast as the need for it increases. FIT supports the 6 acre standard – a minimum of 6 acres of outdoor playing space per 1000 people. Researching and demonstrating your area's particular need will add credence to your campaign and add more support.

Suitable site

A suitable site must have safe road and pedestrian access as well as flat land adequate for recreation. If the site will be used by very young children, it should be open in aspect for easy supervision.

Available site

Even if you find a site you think suitable, you must be sure it's available. Talk to the landowner about selling or even donating the land for recreational use.

Environmental Suitability

It's important to look into the history of the land as it may could contain hazardous pollutants from previous industrial use, making it unsuitable.

Planning

Consult the local planning authority to make sure the land you choose is available for recreational use. Contact your local planning authority and submit a planning application to see if it's usage can change.

Funding

You'll need funds for purchasing a site, preparing it, buying equipment or all three. There are several funding bodies FIT can put you in touch with including lottery funding. All funding bodies look for some funds to also be raised locally. This could mean collections, events or donations from businesses or wealthy individuals.

Protection

Protecting your site is the most important step you can take. This will ensure it's safe from development for many years to come. FIT can provide this protection, making sure the hard work you put into creating and protecting your site will benefit many generations of your community.

Deed of dedication

This is one of FIT's most popular forms of protection. It enables operational and financial control to remain in local hands while enabling the site to have charitable status.

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