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Community goals

Community goals

Dan Di-Lieto 26 Jun 2020
For many people their football club is their life - a constant social outlet they depend on which has shaped multiple generations of families. Clubs have (consciously or not) developed responsibilities beyond simply winning football matches and the importance of their role in society has come into even sharper focus in recent months as a result of the limitations imposed on us by COVID-19.
The football industry as a whole continues to bear the brunt of public scrutiny around what it “gives back” - a more recent phenomenon linked to the influx of money into clubs - particularly top teams - in the past 15 years. Such scrutiny ignores the fact that the majority of clubs have been in the same area for over a hundred years and are often the building blocks on which communities have grown both physically and socially - in sharp contrast to other businesses of similar financial scale and reach. Criticism tends to focus on the headline sums of money which flow into clubs (especially the proportion that goes to players) without consideration of the wider role of clubs within their local communities.
When it comes to the interaction between football clubs and the planning system it becomes critical to challenge this narrative and communicate the real socio-economic benefits of clubs and stadia so that they can be given full and proper consideration by planning authorities and in the court of public opinion.
In the first blog of this series, my colleague outlined the example of the case put forward for the new Riverside Stand at Fulham Football Club. Lichfields used our Evaluate model to prepare a bespoke infographic (below) highlighting the community benefits of local investment, employment opportunities, improvements to local community facilities, continued support of local charities and other initiatives run by, or affiliated with, football clubs.
Figure 1 Lichfields’ Infographic: Economic and Social Impacts of Fulham FC Pre and Post New Riverside Stand 

Source: Lichfields

This type of project, by a club at their own stadium from which they have operated for over 100 years, can be considered a traditional example of football stadia development in one sense. The approach adopted to promote the scheme focuses on the established relationship between the club and local community and the long term socio-economic benefits which would arise from the new investment.
When trying to further define the role that football clubs play in communities it is helpful to explore case studies which depart from this standard model. Lichfields has advised The FA on planning matters in respect of Wembley Stadium for over 20 years and have promoted a number of the community initiatives linked with the venue over this period. A recent example of this can be seen through Tottenham Hotspur FC’s (THFC) temporary occupation of Wembley Stadium during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. As a result of restrictions on the original permission for the stadium, Lichfields worked with THFC to seek consent to increase the number of full capacity events that could be held to cover their home matches for this period. As part of this process THFC undertook to ensure that they could offer the same benefits to the local community in Brent that they have done for decades in Tottenham.
This initiative was spearheaded by the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation and was spread across a number of areas including employment, education, sport, health, wellbeing and community & social cohesion. The key highlights of the initiative were:
  • Thousands of complimentary tickets distributed to local residents;

  • A School Sports Programme that has delivered over 1,150 free PE lessons in 15 Primary Schools, reaching over 2,700 children aged 5-11 in and around Wembley;

  • Major Jobs Fairs held at Wembley Stadium, attracting employers with live job vacancies from a range of industries - including Hilton Hotels, the Met Police and BT;

  • Providing Customer Service training to young people at a volunteer matchday kiosk at Wembley;

  • The launch of a health and wellbeing scheme run in partnership with Neasden Temple involving a weight management course, regular health checks, cultural-specific nutritional advice and a range of physical activities for over 200 members of the Temple’s community; and,

  • The Club’s support and sponsorship of Council-led initiatives including My Heart Beats for Brent, ‘Keep Wembley Tidy’ and Wembley’s festive lights.
In addition to this THFC put in place a legacy programme for the Borough to continue the delivery of the volunteer kiosk model for all England matches played at Wembley and so that the Wellbeing 4 You initiative will continue to be delivered at full capacity.
Such activities are representative of the types of initiative undertaken by many clubs at every level of the footballing pyramid and illustrate how closely intertwined they are with the needs of their local communities. Both Fulham and THFC have their own charitable Foundations which drive investment and involvement locally but such support is proffered by every club. My local team Stevenage F.C. are struggling on the pitch (currently bottom of the fourth tier of professional football) but have been running a Coronavirus Community Careline to help local residents who need help whilst in self-isolation.
Whilst it may seem that no number of good news stories can outweigh the cold hard numbers of what top players earn on a weekly basis, the break from on-pitch activity during the COVID-19 outbreak has helped to shine a light on what clubs and their stadia give back to communities. The challenge for football clubs moving forwards will be to adjust to the new economic reality and there are already indications that the bubble has burst (at least for now) on high transfer fees and wages. This provides a stepping off point to consider how a more holistic approach to stadia (looking beyond football) can be employed to support individuals and businesses that will struggle in the coming months and years.



 

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You want how much?

You want how much?

Dan Di-Lieto 16 Jan 2019
Looking at the pre-application process, it remains an element of the planning system which offers a veritable plethora of approaches and outcomes. As with most things in life the first thing to consider is cost - below is a sequence of amounts for your consideration:

a. £n/
b. £0
c. £1,000
d. £4,800
e. £8,000
f. £12,000

 

There is no mathematical puzzle or formula to be solved here, just a head scratcher of a different sort. These figures are the different charges by a selection of local planning authorities (LPAs) to attend one pre-app meeting and provide a single written response for a “strategic development” (usually defined as 150+ residential units and/or 5,000sqm+ of other uses). Setting aside the frankly eye-watering cost of (f), it is the vast divergent cost of engaging with LPAs at the pre-application stage that is most striking. It is unlikely to be a surprise to hear that (f) is charged by one council in London. What may be more surprising is that both (a) and (b) are in the West Midlands. LPA (b) offers a free pre-application advice service as a means of attracting prospective investors and to encourage engagement between developers and council officers at the earliest stage, to try and ensure that the planning process runs smoothly. This is in stark contrast to (a), where the LPA recently stopped providing a pre-application advice service altogether, due to a lack of resources.
The differences between all of these charges raise a question about how they are derived by LPAs. There is obviously a balancing act to be struck between providing a service that helps speed up the planning process, whilst also recouping sufficient fees to ensure that the resources required for pre-application work do not have a diversionary impact on the ability to determine applications. Everyone in the development sector is aware of the under-resourcing in planning departments and it is difficult to begrudge a LPA which charges a higher amount particularly when it provides a valuable service (unlike monies collected from speed cameras and parking tickets!). However, when this is viewed through the prism of LPAs that are willing and/or able to offer a similar service for free, it gives credence to the argument that in the planning system not all schemes are created equal.
This inconsistency is further magnified by the often varying quality of pre-application responses received. Clients are loathe to pay high fees time after time, when they don’t receive much face time with LPAs and have previously received a poor written response which merely cites relevant policy without offering a “real” assessment of the proposals presented to them, or when positive discussions at a meeting aren’t translated into written advice. This is a particularly tough balance for officers to strike, as they are often keen to be positive but then don’t want to include any hostages to fortune in responses which may cause problems further down the line. However, in more cases than most, it leads to the same response from clients: “What value are we getting for our money?”.
The other matter to be considered in the pre-application process is one of time. Given the ongoing debate about housing delivery, it is perhaps surprising that scrutiny rarely looks at the timescales involved in the pre-application process. As with the scale of pre-application charges, there are no regulations governing timescales for pre-application engagement responses. Whilst LPAs often provide indicative timescales on their websites for how long the process can take - generally one month from submission to a meeting being held and another month for the issue of a written response - such timescales are rarely kept to and there is little or no accountability for doing so. For example, on a recent project the client had to wait for over three months from the date of the meeting to receiving a written response. Such delays often have a significant impact on the delivery of development, as developers generally have to avoid committing fees and resources to projects until they receive a positive written response from the LPA. But just to add, having paid £12,000 to LPA (f), the council’s response was received very promptly!
Whilst we should be loathe to add another layer of bureaucracy to the planning system, considering the above issues together, it is apparent uniformity - ought to be applied to the pre-application process. Here are some suggestions for how it could be improved:
  1. Include pre-application fee guidance (as with application fees) in the NPPG, calculated on the scale and use of proposed developments. These could be maximum figures, so that LPAs not wanting to charge full amounts could apply lower charges;

  2. Allow a portion of pre-application fees paid to be deducted from application fees and/or planning performance agreements (PPAs) for major planning applications. This would encourage developers to engage more thoroughly at the pre-application stage, in the knowledge that the fees they pay aren’t being “wasted”;

  3. MHCLG should provide a template for written pre-application responses (akin to a decision notice) so that they are consistent in format and can provide more certainty; and,

  4. The new regulations should set out standardised “determination periods” for providing pre-application responses which are linked to the scale of proposals and/or extent of pre-application submission documents. The specified time periods would be devised to acknowledge that for some major schemes, inputs are often required from various technical officers at LPAs.

It is obvious that some of the suggested pre-application changes outlined above may not be feasible, given the current status of resourcing at many LPAs. However, if the planning process is to be sped up to improve the rate at which schemes are being delivered all stages of the system need to be explored and refined.

Image credit: Radharc Images / Alamy Stock Photo

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