A PLANNING application to build a new 3G football pitch next to a city leisure centre has been submitted.

Worcester City Council is looking to build the new all-weather 3G pitch at Perdiswell Leisure Centre and has put forward a planning application for the facility at the site off Bilford Road.

Councillors signed off on the plans earlier this month and agreed to put £200,000 aside as the city council’s contribution towards the work.

The new pitch is expected to open in October next year.

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The planning application has been submitted now as the council still waits for an answer on critical government funding.

A decision on which new football pitches across the country will receive government funding is not expected to be made until January next year.

There is little chance the Football Foundation, the charity in charge of handing out government and FA money to grassroots football and which is expected to agree to fund 80 per cent of Worcester’s much-needed 3G pitch, will turn down the city council – with the lack of artificial pitches highlighted in a review of Worcester’s sports facilities by the very same body.

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The same ‘top-tier’ projects which the funding body also sees as essential, as is the case with a 3G pitch at Perdiswell, are usually given the appropriate backing. 

The council put aside £25,000 in 2018 to pay for a study about a potential new futsal facility and all-weather pitch at Perdiswell Leisure Centre.

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Those plans were then put on the back burner by the council until early 2020 and in the meantime, the Football Foundation - the charity responsible for channelling government, FA and Premier League money into grassroots football – said the city needed more smaller-sided pitches and a new all-weather pitch.

The plans were dusted off in November 2021 and councillors agreed to take another look at the project and whether it could still be paid for.

The city council’s Lib Dem group criticised the planned use of microplastics over concerns that they could harm people and animals.

Claines councillor Karen Lawrance said the “environmental consequences” of using a plastic surface could not be ignored.

The plans can be viewed by visiting Worcester City Council’s website. The application number is 23/00621/FUL and consultation ends on August 16.