Councillors are set to decide whether Culcheth High School’s existing 2G hockey pitch should be replaced with a 3G Astro Turf surface, and judging by the report’s photo of flooding, the current pitch appears to be auditioning as a village pond.
The application goes before the development management committee on Thursday and is being recommended for approval, subject to conditions. Officers are also asking for delegated authority for the development manager to make any non-material tweaks to planning conditions and reasons before the final decision is issued, which is planning-speak for tidying the paperwork without turning the whole thing into a soap opera.
The applicant says the current pitch is in a poor condition and is often waterlogged, which is hardly ideal unless the PE curriculum has quietly introduced competitive canoeing. The plan is to remove the old surface and lay a new 3G carpet over the existing shock pads and underlying structure.
The pitch would stay the same shape and size, with no changes to the existing floodlighting or fencing. That is a sensible plus, because nobody in Culcheth needs a floodlight drama added to the weekly list of local grumbles.
The big shift is what the pitch will be best used for. A 3G surface would increase local capacity for football and rugby training and provide the preferred surface for PE lessons at Culcheth High School. That is good news for school sport and for young people who need decent facilities, not a boggy square of despair.
But let’s not pretend there is no trade-off. The report says the benefits of alternative sports provision and curriculum delivery outweigh the loss of existing hockey provision. That may be the planning conclusion, but it still means hockey is being nudged off the stage. For a school pitch that was built for hockey, that is not nothing.
Sport England is a statutory consultee on applications like this, so if the committee supports the recommendation, the decision must be referred to the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government. Approval would only move ahead if the secretary of state does not intervene.
The original report was by Aran Dhillon, Local Democracy Reporter, and appeared with the usual publishing furniture about USA Today, The Herald and the Public Notice Portal, which carries statutory public notices. But the practical point for Culcheth is simple: a waterlogged hockey pitch may soon become a football-and-rugby-friendly 3G surface, with all the benefits and compromises that brings.