Cherwell has agreed to dig up the cricket square at Whitelands Farm Sports Ground, never booked since it opened, and turn it over to rugby. Fringford gets the money.
The cricket pitch at Whitelands Farm Sports Ground in Bicester is to be dug up and turned over to rugby. A council report found it had not been used once since the ground opened in September 2017.
Cherwell District Council’s Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Councillor Lisa Smith, agreed the report on 24 August. It was published on the council’s decision register on 25 August.
The recommendation is to remove the cricket square and outfields, re-purpose the space for grass pitch sport, and pay for improved cricket facilities at Fringford Cricket Club instead. Fringford is a village about four miles north east of Bicester.
Why it is going
The council’s report is unusually direct about the facility’s record.
The cricket facility has never been used since the facility was opened some 10 years ago, and there has been very limited interest from any local clubs/organisations in booking it.
It gives two reasons. The cricket square sits at the furthest point on the site from the pavilion, which the report says limits its appeal. And no local cricket club wants to make it a regular home.
The council says it checked with Bicester Town Council, which runs the site, that there had been no requests to use the cricket facility.
Who gains
Bicester Rugby Club is named in the report as the expected main beneficiary. The club has moved to Whitelands from its former home at Bicester Sports Association on Oxford Road, and the loss of rugby facilities there is what pushed the council to look for more space.
At Whitelands the club currently has:
- two full-size grass pitches, which the district council has floodlit
- a full-size artificial pitch built to World Rugby and Football Association standards, shared with local football clubs
The council is separately working on installing a second full-size artificial pitch at Whitelands for football, which it says would free up more of the existing one for rugby.
The rugby club’s own website describes Whitelands Farm Sports Ground on Whitelands Way as its home, with “some of the best rugby facilities right here in Bicester”.
The council’s Playing Pitch Strategy has identified the need for a long-term usage agreement between Bicester Town Council and the rugby club, and the report says this proposal will help form one.
Cricket does not lose out entirely
Losing a pitch without replacing it was one of the options the council considered and rejected. The report says Oxfordshire Cricket and the England and Wales Cricket Board opposed the loss of a cricket facility without an improvement somewhere else in the area.
The Oxfordshire Cricket Board has agreed to off-site mitigation at Fringford, which the report calls “a club in rural Bicester which is actively developing cricket in the locality”.
Who pays
Both the work at Whitelands and the improvements at Fringford would come out of section 106 money, the contributions developers pay towards local facilities when they build houses. Whitelands itself was built with section 106 money in the first place.
The council’s finance officer recorded no financial implications for the council because the works are funded that way. Legal services added a caveat. The pooled contributions being used at Fringford “should be checked to ensure that they are able to be used for this purpose”. The same check should be done for any section 106 money spent on the new rugby pitches.
The council’s legal team also confirmed the original section 106 agreement is worded broadly enough that no deed of variation is needed to change the use.
What happens now
The decision is subject to call-in, meaning councillors can ask for it to be reviewed before it takes effect. When we checked the council’s decision register on 27 August, the report had been published but no formal decision notice had appeared.
The ward affected is Bicester South and Ambrosden.
One loose end sits in the background. The report notes that lease arrangements between Cherwell District Council and Bicester Town Council for the site “are still waiting to be formally executed”, nine years after the ground opened.
What it means for you
If you play or coach rugby in Bicester, this is capacity. Two grass pitches plus a shared artificial one has been the constraint, and the cricket ground is the only spare space on the site.
If you were hoping to play cricket at Whitelands, that option is going. The nearest improved provision will be at Fringford, which is a drive rather than a walk for most of Bicester.
No timetable for the work has been published, and the report asks only for approval to remove the cricket provision and “explore the options” for what replaces it. We will follow the decision register for the formal notice.
For what else is on locally, see our things to do in Banbury and Bicester page.
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