Stoke Poges Parish Council

The Parish Council's response to a planning application at The South Buckinghamshire Golf Course

Read the Parish Council's full representation

4th November 2026

At the end of September, Wycombe Wanderers Football Club submitted a planning application for Farnham Park Playing Fields and The South Buckinghamshire Golf Course.

  • Demolition of the existing changing block and removal of tennis courts at Farnham Park Playing Fields.
  • Development comprising enhanced community sports facilities and a community sports hub building including changing facilities and associated ancillary uses such as café and office uses.
  • Floodlit 3G football pitch, floodlit padel courts, walking route, landscaping and associated works.
  • Change of use of part of South Buckinghamshire Golf Course to a football training facility. Development comprising football pitches, a performance centre building, indoor training pitch, spectator seating, maintenance facilities, parking, cycle parking, access roads, service and delivery areas, alterations to the existing access arrangements, public right of way and permissive path works.
  • Drainage and attenuation features, floodlighting, landscaping, boundary treatments and associated works.
  • Reconfiguration and development of the remainder of the golf course to provide a revised golf course layout including a practice range and academy course.

The application is available on Buckinghamshire Council’s planning portal (ref: PL/26/07779/FA).

The Parish Council's response

Stoke Poges Parish Council decided to work alongside planning and traffic consultants to look at the many impacts this application will have on our village and surrounding roads. The Parish Council objects to the application.

In summary:

  • The Parish Council objects to the application. As submitted, it should be refused.
  • Elements of the scheme are inappropriate development in the Green Belt. The applicant understates the harm to openness and to the Green Belt purposes, and does not acknowledge the harm to the setting of heritage assets.
  • The case for very special circumstances rests on there being no alternative site. The site search has not been published, and its threshold is nearly three times the area the Hub needs.
  • The community benefit of the Hub is overstated. Community use would be available only when the Club is not using it.
  • None of the benefits relied on is secured. Without that, they cannot carry the weight the applicant gives them.
  • The applicant’s conclusions on landscape, ecology, noise and lighting depend on assumptions and controls that are not fixed. Key information, including survey results and further assessments, is still outstanding.
  • Overspill parking has not been addressed, and the Club cannot enforce parking on the public highway. Water supply for the scheme is not confirmed.
  • The reduction in golf has not been assessed against the wider loss of golf proposed in the same area.
  • The scheme does not deliver Route 7, the walking and cycling route the Stoke Poges Neighbourhood Plan identifies across the site.
  • The Parish Council recognises the investment proposed at Farnham Park. The conditions and obligations in Section 3, and the outstanding information, are the minimum needed before the Council could consider whether the objection is overcome.

The full representation is available to read below.

DOWNLOAD: The Parish Council's representation (PDF, 377KB)

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