Community Sports Complex, Hatfield, Herts

Hatfield Town Council invites expressions of interest from architects for the following project;

The indicative scheme for this facility comprises a multi-purpose flood-lit stadium complex designed to provide a “home” for Hatfield’s senior football teams and to accommodate the needs of various other community user groups.

The grandstand provides a number of purposes. Its primary purpose is to provide seating for spectators. Below the seating area are changing rooms and associated facilities for teams and officials.

The design of the indicative scheme also facilitates the generation of secondary income streams from the bar, social room, conference rooms and other facilities. The grandstand incorporates on its upper floor an integrated club room/academy room/family room/creche with bars, stores and kitchen. This integrated facility is provided with ‘concertina’ type screens to facilitate the division of the upper floor into separate parts to accommodate different users/functions.

Central also to the Client’s core objective of maximising revenue is the incorporation within the facility of a full size all-weather 3G (artificial) football pitch.

In addition to supporting local football clubs, dividing nets can be drawn across the pitch to create separate areas for hire during the week for training and casual 5 a-side games.

Although the adjacent existing Birchwood Leisure Centre and Retail Park already provides ample car parking facilities for predicted visitors, an additional 100nr car parking spaces could be provided to accommodate larger crowds attending more popular, and lucrative, “one-off” events.

Given the need for a new grounds maintenance depot to be provided at Birchwood, for reasons of economy and expediency the indicative scheme included an integrated maintenance depot below the proposed grandstand structure. This may need to be reviewed at Stage 2 Concept design given the potential conflicts arising in the use of the grandstand and the grounds maintenance depot