Green light recommended for Elite football training centre in South Yorkshire

Plans for an elite football training centre in South Yorkshire that would provide facilities for national and international professional teams playing away matches in the North of England look set to get the go-ahead next week (10 February 2026).

Doncaster City Elite Training Centre Ltd submitted a full planning application to City of Doncaster Council last year for a development at Martin Grange Farm in Bawtry.

Planning permission is sought for indoor and outdoor football training facilities, together with self-contained residential accommodation for professional football teams playing away matches and for pre-season training in the UK.

The proposed facility would be able to accommodate two elite teams and one professional team at any given time.

The elite training hub would provide five-star residential and football facilities for travelling squads of up to 50 per team. 

Facilities would include a fully equipped gym, hydro pool, team changing, medical and physiotherapy suites and team administration and management offices together with two full-size, hybrid pitches and goalkeeping areas. A walking trail within the landscaped grounds and padel tennis courts would also be provided.

The professional hub would comprise three-star residential accommodation with indoor and outdoor sports facilities for a women's, lower league or youth teams. 

It would feature administration, changing and sports facilities, including an indoor half-sized pitch for use by a youth training academy. A show pitch with a 499-seater stand and associated car parking also forms part of the professional centre.

It has been estimated that 244 direct full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs would be created during the construction period, with £21.5m of gross value added (GVA) generated.

Once operational, the facility would support 42 direct FTE jobs and generate £1.8m of GVA per annum.

The application will go before the council's planning committee on 10 February and is recommended for approval, subject to conditions, in an officer's report prepared for the meeting.

The report said: "Substantial weight is given to the harm to the Green Belt arising from the proposal's inappropriateness and the identified harm to openness (spatial and visual). That harm is not discounted by other considerations and is weighed alongside the other harm identified to the living conditions of the nearest residential properties.

"Set against this, the proposal delivers a package of site-specific benefits of considerable weight: a strategically important elite and community sports hub addressing evidenced deficiencies; guaranteed and enforceable community access (CUA); significant social value benefits; a coherent employment and skills offer (LESP); credible economic and visitor-economy effects; the absence of realistically preferable alternatives that meet the functional/safeguarding brief; and high-quality, low-carbon design with biodiversity enhancements, all secured by conditions and planning obligations.

"When taken together, and when the Green Belt harm and identified other harm are properly weighed, the combined benefits of the scheme clearly outweigh the totality of harm."

The project team includes KSS Design Group, Urbana, Buro Happold, EDP, Curtins and Max Design.

This article was authored by Stephen Farrell for Insider Media and published under the title 'Green light recommended for Elite football training centre in South Yorkshire', on Green light recommended for Elite football training centre in South Yorkshire | Insider Media. It is reproduced above in accordance with section 30(2) of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.