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Plans to redevelop Waverley Park with new football pitches and a pump track will go before planning bosses this week – but one key stakeholder needs to be convinced.
Under plans being funded by money from the previous government’s Levelling Up Fund, the park is undergoing a £3.2m revamp. The latest stage of those works will go before the council’s planning committee next week.
The application seeks permission to create two 11-a-side football pitches, one nine-a-side pitch and a pump track to be used by bikes. It also involves improvements to the existing play area, a replacement of the skate park with an improved facility, the creation of a new car park with 27 spaces and a reconfiguration of the existing one to provide 34 spaces.
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While Preston City Council is keen to press ahead with the plans, Sport England has objected on the basis that a new footpath and other landscaping would result in the loss of existing playing field land.
However, in its objection it does say this issue could be overcome if the plans are modified and has suggested an alternative layout.
A report prepared for the committee meeting explains these proposals can be considered ahead of the meeting and factored into a final proposal. It recommends that if an agreement can be reached that leads to Sport England dropping the objection, then planning permission should be granted.
If not, committee members are advised to vote to refer the matter to the Government to make the decision instead.
The package of works is one of the projects for which Preston City Council received £20m from the previous government’s Levelling Up Fund. Initially, £1.7m had been reserved for Waverley Park, which is in the St. Matthew’s area of the city, but an extra £1.5m was added to the budget in August when money from abandoned plans for a similar revamp of Ashton Park was redistributed to other city levelling up projects, which have all now been rebadged as the ‘Active Preston’ programme.
The Aston Park facelift was dropped amid public opposition and the need to plug a £5m cost increase across all of the Levelling Up Fund schemes in Preston.
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