Sport and Leisure Strategies and Assessments

Playing Pitch and Outdoor Sports Facilities Strategy

The Council worked with Continuum Sport and Leisure and partners to produce a Playing Pitch and Outdoor Sports Facilities Strategy for 2026 – 2040.

This Strategy will be used to guide investment opportunities into natural and artificial playing pitches, outdoor sports courts and sports facilities, and will be used to inform Section 106 off-site contributions or on-site sports requirements based on need.

This Strategy involved in-depth data collection and site visits at playing pitches and sports facilities across the district. Local sports clubs, facility leads and sport National Governing Bodies were closely involved and consulted throughout the development of the Strategy.

Sport England and sport National Governing Bodies signed off the Strategy data, and a period of public consultation was held ahead of Cabinet adopting the final Strategy in October 2026.

The full Playing Pitch and Outdoor Sports Facilities Strategy can be found here

The Council also worked with partners to produce a Local Football Facility Plan (LFFP) 2025, to support investment in football facilities across the district. The purpose of this plan was to identify the priority projects for potential investment in Dover, and it supports the Playing Pitch and Outdoor Sports Facilities Strategy 2026.

Indoor Sport Facility Strategy 2023

In April 2023 Dover District Council adopted a new Indoor Sport Facility Strategy (ISFS) to 2040, replacing the previous 2016 version. You can view the new Strategy here: 

Indoor Sport Facility Strategy

The Indoor Sports Facility Strategy (ISFS) examines the current and future supply and demand for indoor sports facilities across Dover District. The purpose of the strategy is to help guide potential decisions around rationalisation and investment of facilities including encouraging community use of school facilities. The study will also be used to highlight the links to public health and how provision of accessible indoor facilities contributes towards healthy living and well-being.

Play Area Provision

This document  sets out the strategic direction for future investment in at Dover District Council owned play areas, arrangements for managing play areas and provides an evidence base for both determining appropriate development contributions and supporting applications to funding bodies. Considerable progress has been made since the last review more than five years ago, the national and local context has also changed.

This document assesses the current state of play facilities in the district and identifies gaps in provision. This will provide clear framework to guide the development of new projects over the coming years.

Review of Play Area Provision 2012-2026 

Open Space Assessments

To meet the requirement for an open space assessment ahead of the adoption of the Local Plan, consultants Knight Kavanagh & Page (KKP) were commissioned to undertake reviews of all open spaces in 2019.

• Open Space Assessment Report 2019 - this provides detail with regards to what open space provision exists in the area, its condition, distribution and overall quality. The document sets out the findings of the research, consultation, site assessments, data analysis and GIS mapping undertaken as part of this study.
• Open Space Standards Paper 2019 - this follows on from the above Open Space Assessment Report identifying the deficiencies and surpluses in existing open space provision and makes recommendations with respect to the provision of future open spaces.
• The Open Space and Sport Topic Paper 2022 - which supports the Local Plan, summarises and partially updates the information in the above reports.
• The next Open Space Strategy is due to be developed in 2027-2028.