Facility Development

The standard of facilities required often depends on the level of competition, the size of the club and the nature of the sport. For example, a junior soccer club may only require access to grassed playing fields with toilets, while a senior soccer club in first division will require a full-size pitch with changerooms, first-aid room and (will usually desire) clubroom facilities.

There are facilities that are viewed as essential to the success of the sport, such as the playing or court surface for competition and training. There are also facilities that would be considered beneficial to the sport, such as changerooms, clubrooms or lights. It is this secondary level of facilities that sporting clubs deem as beneficial to the sport that can have a large financial impact on the club and may be a future burden rather than a benefit.

When considering the development of facilities, the Key Principles of Facility Provision should be followed. The size and nature of the proposed facility will determine the amount of supporting documentation required, i.e., a large clubroom development would require significantly more research and analysis than a project that involved the development of more playing fields.