The London Borough of Brent has commissioned KKP to deliver an integrated, borough-wide programme of needs assessment and strategy development across three major areas of provision:
- Built sport and leisure facilities
- Playing pitches and outdoor sport
- Play, recreation and open space
Future-proofing the borough
This programme will produce three inter-linked infrastructure strategies that form part of the Council’s wider Strategic Outcomes Planning Model (SOPM) work and supporting evidence base:
- Built Facilities Strategy (BFS)
- Playing Pitch Strategy (PPS)
- Play and Recreation Facilities Strategy (PFS) – including open space
The aim of the combined project is to evaluate whether Brent has sufficient provision, in terms of both quantity and quality, for each category to meet the needs of its diverse and growing communities, now and in the future.
The work will take account of population and housing growth, along with the impact of major new infrastructure and development in and around the borough, including the Old Oak and Park Royal development. The needs assessments will help to future-proof the resulting strategies and align them with the Council’s Local Plan and long-term ambitions up to 2041 and the evolving planning policy context across London and nationally.
Built facilities (BFS)
In addition to assessing borough-wide need, Brent is committed to delivering a new Bridge Park leisure centre. KKP’s work will strengthen the evidence base to support this ambition, alongside identifying wider requirements for future indoor sport and leisure provision across the borough. As part of this, the BFS will build on Sport England’s Facilities Planning Model – a spatial modelling tool used to assess strategic provision of key community facilities such as sports halls and swimming pools.
Playing pitches and outdoor sport (PPOSS)
This strand will assess need, existing provision and current and future requirements for pitch sports such as football, cricket, rugby and GAA alongside wider outdoor sports and activity provision where relevant. Its scope will include quality, capacity, access and the ability to secure and retain community use. Water sports will also be considered where relevant to Brent’s current provision and future need.
Play, recreation and open space (PFS)
This element covers current provision and community need for outdoor space and recreation facilitated through parks, playgrounds and other formal play spaces, recreation grounds and natural greenspace. It will help Brent to understand provision levels, identify shortfalls (in relation to quantity, quality and access) and inform future decisions on investment, protection and improvement of provision. This reflects national planning policy changes introduced in 2024 which explicitly protect ‘formal play spaces’ alongside open space, sports and recreational land.
Delivering an integrated evidence base
KKP will work closely with the Council and stakeholders to ensure the strategies are robust, transparent and usable in practice to support decision-making on future provision and investment.
The wider SOPM programme will additionally draw on Sport England’s leisure services delivery guidance to inform options for future service delivery and operating models.
All of this will ensure that Brent is well-positioned to respond to further proposed reforms to national planning policy currently out for consultation, and to the timetable for the next London Plan.
KKP is uniquely positioned to deliver on this sizeable, multi-disciplinary commission thanks to the broad range of skills and experience it has across the three study themes. The number, breadth and depth of its specialist consultants in each of these fields gives it capacity that few other practices can muster.
These attributes have already been tried and tested on multiple recent occasions when delivering comparable large scale joint commissions for other London authorities – including recently the City of Westminster and the London boroughs of Havering, Richmond upon Thames and Wandsworth.
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