Woodlands Sports Facilities
Woodlands became a sports facility in the late 1980s when Pearl Assurance moved its main operation from London to Peterborough and provided sport and recreation facilities for its staff. The building closed in 2005 although the pitches and outdoor facilities remained in use for a few more years.
Following complex negotiation with the previous leaseholders and to enable a return to community sports use, Nene Park took over the management of Woodlands Sport pitches in 2017. Part of the original site is under the management of a local care home provider, Country Court Care, who have built a care facility onsite – Castor Lodge Care Home. They are intending to demolish the existing large unused sports building to increase their accommodation provision.
Nene Park Trust submitted plans to make sure sport continues to thrive at Woodlands for generations to come. The proposals include a brand-new sports pavilion with dedicated changing rooms, a welcoming community space, a fully equipped kitchen and a year-round Multi Use Games Area (MUGA). Planning approval from Peterborough City Council was granted in 2025, and our project team is now moving forward with the next steps to bring these improvements to life for everyone who uses and loves this facility.
Our plans for the new Sports Pavilion
We worked with local architects BBA and landscape architects Sheils Flynn to produce a scheme that we believe will sit sensitively in the surrounding landscape, meet the needs of current users, enable a more diverse range of sports participation on site and provide the community with a welcoming and accessible space for meetings, classes and events.
The sports pavilion building will comprise of changing facilities and an indoor space that will house a large hall for indoor exercise activity or meetings with associated kitchen, storage and toilets. The original concept design of two buildings interlinked has now been developed with the changing facilities in a L-shape plan wrapping around the multi-function hall.
The proposed MUGA will offer users a place for sport and recreation in all weathers throughout the year. This building will also be the Trust’s only public building in the Rural Estate area and may act as the base from which other activities could be undertaken in the surrounding landscape.
We are also hoping to maximise the opportunities for the community to participate in sport onsite. Woodlands is currently home to Thorpe Wood Rangers FC and Bharat and Bretton Cricket Clubs. The inclusion of a MUGA will provide winter opportunities for our current teams but also provide facilities for other sports including netball.
Castor and Ailsworth Tennis Club are also planning to join us at Woodlands and they have well developed plans to enhance the sporting offer on the site. These including five artificial grass courts (three of which will have environmentally friendly floodlighting), two pickleball courts and two padel tennis courts. The courts will be open to all.
Scroll through our artist impressions below and see how this project could come to life!
Woodlands Project FAQs
Woodlands is in the village of Castor about 4 miles west of Peterborough City Centre and is part of Nene Park Trust’s wider estate.
We are proposing an economical building, built with sustainability as a key principle using reclaimed materials from the original building where possible.
The building will comprise of changing facilities and an indoor space that will house a large hall for indoor exercise activity or meetings with associated kitchen, storage and toilets. The original concept design of two buildings interlinked has now been developed with the changing facilities in a L-shape plan wrapping around the multi-function hall.
We have designed these improvements to increase opportunities for participation from a wide range of people with varying interests and needs from across our community. We are also working with the clubs using the grass pitches to diversify their offers and get more young people and women represented on site. Whilst there will be an increase from the levels of use recently seen this will not be greater than the levels of use of the original sports centre and we are focusing our efforts on spreading this activity around the year rather than increasing total capacity.
We are working with local architects BBA and award-winning landscape architects Sheils Flynn, Structural Engineers Webb Yates, Transport Consultants Bancroft Consulting and Savills. We are also working with the local sports clubs, relevant bodies such as Sport England, ECB and the LTA as well as Castor PC and Country Court Care to produce a scheme that will benefit the local community.
Woodlands is situated in the village of Castor, 4 miles west of the city centre but within easy access of the A47.
The existing car park will provide provision for Nene Park Woodlands visitors provided on the Country Court Care Site, with the provision of 15 spaces on weekdays, 60 for matches and the opportunity to increase this onsite and in fields adjacent for events.
There will also be new provision made for accessible spaces, EV parking and coach drop off and turning and covered cycle parking.
We have undertaken a joint exercise with Country Court Care, using an independent transport consultant to review the proposals for the sports facilities and the proposed assisted living accommodation. Using nationally benchmarked data, current site information and historic information for Woodlands, the number of traffic movements and parking requirements have been calculated. This has all been based on the worst case scenario of maximum utilisation and overlapping use. The results of this show that traffic movements would be lower overall than the previous established use at Woodlands.
The proposed site for building and MUGA have very little habitat value. Our surveys have shown that there are no priority species in the area which will be affected and there will therefore be very little impact to wildlife and the habitat surrounding the site.
To improve the biodiversity our plans include:
- planting 18 native trees
- creation of 995 m2 of wildflower lawn
- 313 m2 of wildflower extensive green roof with over 49 species to give a suitable environment for insects and invertebrates
- planting of 136 lin m of mixed native hedging
- creation of 81.5 lin m of swale with planting of over 13 different wetland plants
- placement of bird and bat boxes on the pavilion building
- placement of invertebrate box within the stone filled gabion wall
The Woodlands Pavilion has been designed to align with the Trust’s environmental ambitions, through the application of the core principles of Passive House design: high quality insulation; superior windows; mechanical ventilation and heat recovery; airtight construction; and, no thermal bridging.
The intention is to include Photovoltaic tiles on the roof and install a rainwater harvesting system for the toilets If the proposed demolition of the existing Sports Centre is granted planning permission, and dependent on time frames for the separate developments, then materials from the Sports Centre will be re-used in the new pavilion.
A Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system has been put forward as it is an efficient low carbon means of providing heat to the building and aims to future proof the building as the UK moves away from gas boilers.
Nene Park Trust is proposing for the MUGA to be in operation up to 10pm. Whilst it is considered that the lighting will not have a significant impact upon residential amenity, ceasing play at 22:00 hours would result in the lighting still remaining on until the site is cleared. Therefore, it is considered that the hours of use be suitably conditioned so that play ends at 21:30 and the lights be turned off no later than 22:00 hours (on weekdays). All times are before the standard curfew of 23:00 hours as set out in the ILE Guidance.
The access strategy for the Woodlands Pavilion is based on the principles of inclusive design in relation to the protected characteristic of disability under the Equality Act 2010.
The proposed development has been designed with access for all in mind. The key provisions include:
- A management system in place to allow drop off and limited accessible parking in close proximity to the Pavilion, with the remainder of the accessible parking found in the main car park.
- Power assisted doors to facilitate ease and independent access for all.
- Level access thresholds present at all entrances to the building.
- A separate unisex accessible changing room.
- Communal changing rooms for sports teams sized to accommodate accessible changing and showering facilities within them.
- A separate unisex-accessible WC.
- A separate unisex accessible parent room.
- A Changing Places facility.
- The kitchen area will be wheelchair accessible, with a counter top set at 850mm.
- An assistive listening system, and signs indicating its availability, provided in the multi-function hall.
The layout of the site has been developed through a thorough understanding of the site constraints. This has included workshops with the client and wider design team, alongside discussions with various stakeholders in the Woodlands site, including the adjacent care home provider, tennis club, sports bodies and local community.
It is important that the pavilion has good views across the sports pitches and provides direct access to as many pitches and different sports uses as possible. The most optimum solution for this would have been to place the building in the centre of the existing site, with new pitches arranged radially around it. However, this would have a detrimental impact on the open field nature of the site.
A further small new building (machinery store) near the cricket green will provide shelter for the cricketers, storage and scoring alongside storage of machinery to maintain the green.
The buffer around the northern edge of our proposals varies from 10m to 40m. Within this buffer is a mixture of shrub and tree planting, wildflowers and long grass areas. There is also a range of habitat features for invertebrates and nesting boxes for bats and birds.
To make this project a reality we will be reliant on grants and donations from sports governing bodies, other grant providers and fundraising from sports clubs and the local community. Nene Park Trust will also be investing funds secured from the lease of part of the site into the construction of these new facilities.
