Why Sport England’s Statutory Consultee Role Matters for Play
In December 2024, Play England secured a significant shift in national planning policy.
For the first time, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) explicitly recognises the need to protect formal play spaces, alongside playing fields and sports provision. This places children’s play firmly within the core social infrastructure that the planning system must safeguard.
Crucially, this policy change relies on effective delivery. One of the most important mechanisms for that delivery is Sport England’s statutory consultee role.
In simple terms, this means that when a development could affect a playing field or similar space, councils must seek Sport England’s expert advice before making a decision.
The Government is now consulting on proposals to remove this role. For the play sector, this matters!
From Policy to Practice: Why Statutory Consultation Matters
Sport England has been a statutory consultee in England’s planning system since 1996.
Where a development affects a playing field, local planning authorities are legally required to consult Sport England before a decision is made. This is not bureaucratic box-ticking. Each year, Sport England is consulted on well over a thousand planning applications. In the majority of cases, its involvement prevents the permanent loss of community spaces, improves the design and quality of facilities, or secures mitigation and wider community access.
Before this safeguard existed, around 10,000 playing fields were lost. Planning policy alone did not stop that. The statutory role was created because protection without enforcement does not work.
Since the NPPF change in December 2024, this mechanism has become even more important for children’s play as well as for sport and recreation.
A Growing Risk to Children’s Play
The Government’s current proposals would remove the legal requirement for local planning authorities to consult Sport England. In practice, this would mean:
Sport England’s advice becomes optional, not mandatory.
Councils would no longer be required to consider its views.
Decisions affecting play, sport and recreation spaces could proceed without specialist scrutiny.
This risk is heightened by the further proposed changes to the NPPF that are currently out for consultation (Dec 2025), build on the change we secured in Dec 2024 with further strengthen the policy emphasis on play, recreation and active environments.
If policy protection is being expanded, the mechanisms that deliver it should not be weakened at the same time.
Most of Sport England’s statutory work relates to schools and public facilities. These are often the only large, accessible spaces for play, sport and recreation in dense communities. Weakening scrutiny here directly affects children’s everyday opportunities to play.
Reform, Not Removal
Play England recognises that the planning system must support growth and infrastructure delivery. We therefore welcome Sport England’s Radical Reform six-point plan, which sets out how the statutory role can be modernised to be faster, more proportionate, and more focused, while still protecting health-giving infrastructure. It proposes to:
streamline statutory responses,
reduce unnecessary referrals,
strengthen strategic plan-making input, and
support faster, better-quality decisions.
We support this direction. But reform is not the same as removal. Retaining Sport England’s statutory consultee role, while modernising how it operates, is a proportionate and effective way to protect health, wellbeing, and community infrastructure. And that reform must now reflect the expanded national policy framework that explicitly includes play and recreation.
Retain and Strengthen for Play and Recreation
National planning policy now goes much further than it did when Sport England’s role was first defined. The NPPF contains materially stronger references to play and recreation, reflecting their importance to children’s wellbeing, public health, and inclusive place-making.
As such the statutory role must not only be reformed but evolve accordingly. Play England therefore calls for:
retention of Sport England as a statutory consultee, and
extension of that role to explicitly cover play and recreation, alongside formal sport.
This ensures policy coherence, effective delivery, and real protection for children’s play and recreation in the planning system. The question is not whether the planning system should change. It is whether those changes continue to protect the places where children play.
Standing with the Sector
We are proud to support the wider sector response, including:
the Sport and Recreation Alliance’s Protect Where We Play campaign,
Fields in Trust and their work to safeguard community playing fields, and
the growing coalition of organisations, professionals and communities calling for a planning system that protects active, healthy places.
These are not narrow sector interests. They are about whether communities retain the spaces that support health, connection, and play.
What Happens Next
Play England submitted a formal response to the Government’s consultation, setting out:
why statutory consultation matters for play,
how it underpins recent and proposed NPPF reforms, and
why Sport England’s role should be retained and strengthened.
We have also produced a policy briefing for MPs, as Parliamentary interest in the implications for play and recreation continues to grow.
What You Can Do
If you care about children’s right to play:
Support the Protect Where We Play campaign.
Sign and share the Parliamentary petition.
Contact to your MP and ask them to support the retention of Sport England as a statutory consultee.
The planning system shapes children’s daily lives.
Protecting Sport England’s statutory consultee role is about protecting the places where children play.
This work sits at the heart of Play England’s 10-year strategy, It All Starts with Play! Because if we want healthy, active and inclusive places, it really does start with play.
#ItAllStartsWithPlay