Playing pitch assessment and strategy

Salford City Council and Salford Community Leisure are major providers of sports pitches and other leisure facilities. This provision is complemented by facilities in the education, voluntary and private sectors. Current provision and access to facilities is uneven across the city, and the quality of pitches and ancillary facilities (including changing facilities and car parking) has a significant bearing on their level of use.

The population of Salford is expected to continue to grow in future years, which is likely to increase demand for sports and leisure facilities but there is also expected to be pressures for the development of land in and around urban areas and green spaces (including playing fields).

The saved policies of the city's unitary development plan (UDP) and Salford greenspace strategy supplementary planning document establish the planning policy framework. In order to gain a more detailed understanding of the supply (quantity and quality) and demand for playing pitches the city council and Salford Community Leisure appointed planning consultants Knight, Kavanagh and Page (KKP) in 2015 to produce a new playing pitch strategy, which was updated by KKP in 2018. The assessment and strategy and action plan documents focus on:

• football pitches (senior, junior and mini)
• rugby league pitches
• rugby union pitches
• cricket pitches
• hockey pitches
• tennis courts

Through in-depth community consultation and fieldwork assessment, KKP have recommended strategic opportunities for improvement, investment and protection of Salford's playing pitch facilities. The assessment and subsequent strategy and action plan is based on new Sport England guidance. Both documents have been endorsed by Sport England and the relevant National Governing Bodies for Sport:

• Football Association
• Rugby Football League
• Rugby Football Union
• England and Wales Cricket Board
• England Hockey

The Salford playing pitch assessment has been adopted as council policy and will be a material consideration for planning applications, particularly those that would lead to the loss of playing fields. The full version of Salford playing pitch assessment and Salford playing pitch strategy and action plan are available to download below.

This page was last updated on 19 December 2018