STRI (Sports Turf Research Institute) Bulletin April 2014 | Page 8

DESIGN
Richard Stuttard
Fiona Crossley

Principal Planning Officer, STRI
Research Officer, STRI

STRI PLANNING
AND DESIGN AT
BROOKSBANK SCHOOL
The spring of 2013 saw STRI become
involved in a sports development
project on behalf of Brooksbank
School, Elland, Halifax, West
Yorkshire. Initially STRI was engaged
to provide a feasibility study to assess
the requirements for upgrading part
of the school’s current playing field
provision. The remit of the school
was to reconfigure their playing fields
to provide a higher quality sporting
provision, to include two football
pitches and an 800m cycle track with
accompanying changing facilities and car
parking. The original configuration of
the site comprised two football pitches
and one rugby pitch; each of which was
of low specification and irregular in
size. The condition of these pitches was
quite poor due to drainage issues on the
site causing frequent waterlogging and

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Bulletin April 2014 Issue 265

making the area regularly unplayable.
The school wanted to create two fullsize pitches which were free draining
and available for play all year round and
were also looking to promote, with the
assistance of Sport England, the creation
of an 800m cycle track which would be
constructed in time to coincide with the
passing of the Tour De France through
the local area in 2014.
From the outset it was clear that not
only would the development require
planning permission, but that there
would also be a number of specific
factors to consider within this planning
application and, it was at this point, that
STRI offered their planning services
as a holistic solution to the school
in conjunction with our Design and
Ecology teams.

STRI’s planning services have been
established for a number of years
now and specialise in sports facility
development. In recent years we have
provided services to a large number of
clients, often in challenging situations,
and have seen great success in our
planning approval turnover. The reason
for our success is our multi-disciplinary
team, which allows all aspects of a
project to be joined together cohesively
into one planning submission package.
Our approach is to utilise our Planning
Specialists to lead the planning
application from conceptual design
through to planning decision and to
bring all in-house expertise relevant
to the project. In the case of the
Brooksbank School project we utilised
our design teams, drainage specialists,
irrigation specialists, environmentalists,