Understanding the shortfall in space for Sport in the wider Winchester city area
The wider Winchester city area is defined as: All Winchester City Wards, plus the parishes of Olivers Battery, Badger Farm, Littleton, Headbourne Worthy & Kings Worthy.
The Winchester Open Spaces report of 2022 is an excellent report that clearly identifies and breaks down all types of open space, including allotments, parks, recreation grounds and Sports grounds, by parish and ward. Sport Winchester encourages WCC to build this data WCC Local Plan Map planning tool for future reference and protection. You can access this Openspace report here
Currently, using this data, the shortfall in sports grounds and facilities has been identified as more than 16 hectares, and with a need predicted to rise to over 20 hectares by 2040, using the WCC standards currently adopted.
Sport Winchester has produced a simple analysis that shown how this information is compiled, and also included recommendations that we believe could make the whole future planning and resource management better. In particular, Sport Winchester has strongly recommended that the Local Plan should have specific metrics included to both recover this shortfall, and manage future requirement to the right standards - making space for Sport and a healthy lifestyle across the city.