Supporting plans for a new football and community hub

What we did

Set up by former professional footballer Russell Martin, the foundation is a registered charity that exists to impact positively on the lives of children, young people and adults through football, education health and improvement initiatives.

Working alongside the charity, and a professional team that included architects FWP and highways consultant PSA Design, PWA achieved a planning consent for this development on the former Southwick Football Club site.

The development proposed the creation of a new sports hub building, an all-weather 3G football pitch to replace the former grass pitch, and new player and supporter facilities.

As well as having changing rooms and bar and kitchen facilities, the sports hub building would offer a flexible space for a variety of education and community health programmes. It also includes the creation of new dugouts, a new stand for 56 spectators, new turnstiles, new pitch barriers and fencing and replacement floodlights.

In attaining the consent, extensive consultation was required in resolving both drainage and ecology issues. Highways and amenity impacts were also particularly critical given some of the nearby commercial uses and adjacent residential properties.

Our team’s support was central to navigating the application through the planning process, ensuring the application resolved these key matters early in the design stage where possible.