Green light recommended for Doncaster City Elite Training Centre
The council will consider plans for a high-performance football training hub on 37 acres at Martin Grange Farm at its planning meeting on Tuesday.
Revised plans for the site were submitted in June, following a refusal in February over concerns about developing on Green Belt and the impact on two neighbouring properties.
Headed up by sports stadium experts KSS Architects, which is also working on Leeds United’s Elland Road expansion and has designed elite training grounds for Leicester City, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, and Crystal Palace, the project team also comprises planning consultant Urbana, landscape architect EDP, civil engineer Buro Happold, and Curtins as transport consultant.
The development would create a high-performance football training hub featuring indoor and outdoor facilities alongside residential accommodation for professional teams travelling for competitive fixtures and pre-season training camps.
The site is around one mile north west of the town of Bawtry and eight miles south east of Doncaster.
Plans include two full-size hybrid pitches, specialist goalkeeping areas, a fully equipped gym, hydrotherapy pool, medical and physiotherapy suites, changing facilities and team administration offices.
The elite training hub would be capable of accommodating two elite teams and one professional team simultaneously, with five-star accommodation and training facilities for squads of up to 50 players and staff per team.
A separate professional hub would provide three-star accommodation and sports facilities aimed at women’s teams, lower-league clubs and youth squads. This element would include an indoor half-size training pitch, changing facilities and administration space.
The scheme also incorporates a show pitch with a 499-seat stand, padel tennis courts, landscaped walking routes, and associated parking.
Doncaster is centrally located in the North of England, with eight Premier league clubs and 12 Championship clubs within a two-hour travel time, and is just over a three hour drive to Wembley, and is therefore close to around 45% of the clubs in the top two tiers of English football.
