Officers want the 1988 covenant that keeps the old Spring Meadows football pitch as pitch or farmland lifted; 18 objectors and the parish council say no. Speak by 4pm Tuesday.

A 38-year-old legal agreement that keeps a field on the edge of Great Shefford as either a football pitch or farmland goes before West Berkshire councillors on Wednesday 19 August, with planning officers recommending it be lifted and every one of the 18 public responses, plus the parish council, asking for it to stay.

The application, 26/00036/MDOPO, is item 1 on the Western Area Planning Committee agenda for 6.30pm at the council offices in Market Street, Newbury. It sits alongside a separate, still-undecided application for 16 homes on the same land, and it is that pairing which has drawn the objections.

What is actually being decided

When the Spring Meadows estate was approved in 1988, the developer signed a Section 52 agreement (the forerunner of today’s Section 106) dated 24 May 1988. The officer’s report explains that its Seventh Schedule, section F, required the land to the north-west of the estate to be laid out as a football pitch, and restricted any future use to a football pitch or agriculture, unless the council consented to something else.

The application, validated on 12 January 2026, asks the council to strike out that clause. Nothing else in the 1988 agreement would change, and the modification would be sealed through a deed of variation.

Timeline for the Spring Meadows land at Great Shefford from the 1988 Section 52 agreement, through the football club closing in 1998 and the 2025 Local Plan allocation, to the 4pm 18 August speaking deadline and the 19 August committee vote

Officers say the football club the pitch was built for is long gone. According to the report, the council was told in March 1998 that West Shefford Football Club had ceased to exist and the landowner had taken the land back. In August 2008 the owner wrote again to say the pitch had not been used for more than ten years, and on 9 September 2008 the council confirmed a return to farming was allowed under the agreement.

Why officers say the clause has had its day

The report’s argument rests on the West Berkshire Local Plan Review 2023-2041, adopted by the council on 10 June 2025. Policy RSA23 in that plan allocates “Land west of Spring Meadows, Great Shefford” for approximately 15 dwellings, with access from Spring Meadows and a list of conditions: buildings kept off the northern corner, a flood risk assessment because of a surface water flow path and groundwater emergence in the north-east corner, an ecological assessment, an archaeological desk study, a minerals resource assessment, a connection to mains sewerage, and proof of nutrient neutrality because the site drains to the River Lambourn SSSI and Special Area of Conservation.

Officers’ logic runs: the clause existed to stop other development on the field; the adopted plan now says homes there are acceptable in principle; therefore the clause “no longer serves a useful planning purpose”, which is the legal test under section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The recommendation is to delegate to the Development Manager to grant, subject to the deed of variation.

What objectors say

The report records representations from 18 contributors, all objecting, and an objection from Great Shefford Parish Council. The parish council’s position, as summarised by officers, is that residents bought their homes on the understanding that if football stopped, the land would stay agricultural, and that lifting the covenant now “would undermine the original intent of the agreement”.

The public objections listed in the report cover flooding and surface water, wildlife, the North Wessex Downs National Landscape, the effect on residents’ deeds, and the argument that a pitch nobody has used for decades could still be brought back for sport or school use. Several make the point that lack of use does not make an obligation obsolete.

Officers have set most of that aside as irrelevant to this particular decision. The report states plainly that flood risk, drainage, ecology, the National Landscape, highways and “the principle of housing development” are matters for the 16-home application, not for the covenant. The only question on Wednesday, they say, is whether the 1988 restriction still does a job.

The 16-home application waiting behind it

The homes scheme is 25/01800/FULMAJ, “Proposed 16no dwellings, new access, public open space and landscaping” on land to the west of Spring Meadows. It was validated on 28 August 2025, is still “awaiting decision”, and the council’s register shows 59 comments and 120 documents on the file. It is not on Wednesday’s agenda.

The officer’s report is careful on the link: granting the covenant change “would not constitute approval of residential development”, and the 16 homes would still have to be assessed in full against Policy RSA23 and the rest of the plan. Read the other way, refusing the covenant change would leave a legal restriction on the land that a housing consent would have to overcome, which is why the two are being argued as one fight in the village.

Also on Wednesday’s agenda

  • Land to the rear of 13 Woodside, Newbury (26/00854/PIP): permission in principle for one single-storey house on the site of three demolished garages, next to woodland covered by a Tree Preservation Order. Officers recommend approval; the report records 19 objections and an objection from Newbury Town Council, which wants an outstanding public right of way claim settled first. Highways have asked for three parking spaces rather than the two shown, and the Lead Local Flood Authority wants a flood risk assessment because the access sits on a surface water flow route. Councillors visited the site on 13 August.
  • 3 Blake Road, Hermitage (26/00858/HOUSE): a loft conversion with three rooflights front and back. Officers recommend approval. It reaches committee because of 10 letters of objection; a previous certificate-of-lawfulness application for rooflights, 25/02699/CERTP, was refused, and Hermitage Parish Council objects.

What it means for you

  • If you want to speak, the agenda front sheet says you must notify the Planning Team by 4.00pm on Tuesday 18 August by emailing planningcommittee@westberks.gov.uk. Speaking can be in person or remote.
  • If you want to watch, the meeting is streamed live; the link is on the agenda page above.
  • If you live on Spring Meadows, Wednesday’s vote does not itself approve any houses. Comments on the 16-home scheme are made on the council’s planning register against 25/01800/FULMAJ, and that application will come back to committee or be decided by officers separately.
  • If you own land with an old planning agreement on it, this case shows the test the council applies: not whether the agreement was fair when signed, but whether it still serves a planning purpose today.

We will report the outcome after Wednesday’s meeting. For how planning decisions work across the district, and how to comment on any application, see our Newbury planning news page.