COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, February 10, 2025

QUESTION NO. 15

QUESTION: Councillor J. Sinnott

To ask the Chief Executive if there are any plans to increase or reduce the number of playing pitches in the South Dublin County Council Area?

REPLY:

Recognising the challenges in the provision of sports pitches; South Dublin County Council commissioned a Sport Pitch Strategy (SPS) in 2020 to provide the Council with a clear evidence base and set of recommendations for future outdoor sports facility development across the district over the coming years. A SPS is a strategic assessment that provides an analysis of supply and demand for playing pitches (grass and artificial) in the local authority. The strategy and the evidence upon which it is based is delivered using insight from specific Governing Bodies of Sport, national guidance and local stakeholder input. The strategy focused on the following sports: Soccer, GAA, Rugby Union, Hockey, Cricket and Athletics.

Meeting pitch demand requires actions on a number of fronts and the SPS defined 5 main actions for the council to deliver; the actions are set out below as follows:

Increase maintenance of existing pitches to improve match play equivalents:
Following adoption of the strategy the Council has provided additional revenue budget to support these actions. A signifincant annual pitch maintenance budget covers regular fortnightly maintenance and includes a sum of for engagement of specialist contractors to do minor drainage improvements as well as goal mouth repairs and replacement of goal posts. SDCC manage regular grass cutting of pitches by direct labour. 

The Council’s Public Realm Section has also in the past 5 to 7 years carried out major pitch upgrades including installing drainage systems on pitches in Tymon Park (4), Jobstown Park (1), Butler McGee Park (1), Clondalkin Park (1) and Ballymount Park (1). These schemes have been funded through a combination of sports capital funding as well as council own capital and revenue resources, with other funding where available.
A further 14 pitches have received sports capital funding, (including the successful grant of 10 new pitch upgrades as part of the 2024 allocation announced last year); with plans to progress these on a phased basis to decrease impacts on clubs' access to pitches. 2 of these pitches upgrades are underway at present in Grifeen Valley Park and Glenaulin Park, a further pitch upgrade is being delivered with the upgrade of St. Cuthbert's Park and upgrades on 2 No. Jobstown pitches are planned for 2025. The installation of such drainage schemes will improve waterlogging and playability issues on those pitches which require this level of intervention.


Develop a revised allocation policy; including pitch sharing and multipurpose use of facilities where appropriate:
In 2021, the Council introduced a new online Pitch Allocation and Booking system which went live for the 2021/2022 playing season. The South Dublin County Council’s Annual Allocation of Pitches/Sporting Facilities – Policy and Conditions can be found at www.sdcc.ie/bookapitch. Once clubs are allocated pitches via the online system they are given access to “Pitch Manager” software which enables the club to manage and record all activity on the pitches allocated to them.
The information allows SDCC gather valuable key data to better manage and maintain pitches against a scenario of growing demand. It will also help identity any pitches that are underused and provide more availability for pitch sharing etc.

Reserve ability to change the configuration of pitches:
This ability is built into the allocation policies, and pitches are swapped out as required/if appropriate. Flexibility in configuration/layout is provided as much as possible at the planning and design stage to future proof pitches to allow for changes as required.

Provide new grass pitches to meet capacity issues:
New grass pitches have been recently delivered as set out below and new pitches are also planned as part of developments:

Provide Artifical Grass Pitches to augment long term capacity and meet training need:
At present; there is a council approved and funded 3G Artificial Grass Pitch Programme, based on the recommendations from the SPS and is agreed and underway. 2 No. artificial grass pitches have been delivered (at Airlie Park and Sean Walsh Park) as part of this programme of delivery, the other 3 no. required locations are in the west and east of the county and the new Strategic Development Zone area at Clonburris plans to provide 1 No. GAA sized / multi-sport Artificial Grass Pitch and 1 No. soccer sized / multi-sport Artificial Grass Pitch within the SDZ area. 

The SPS defined future locations of additional floodlit artificial grass pitches, as it provides evidence based upon local team usage and future team generation rates that would be the predominant users of the facility. The SPS demonstrates that there is a need to provide AGP’s as a vital asset to the local community in terms of a training and match-play facility for clubs, teams and others. The delivery of the SPS is reviewed on a regular basis and implementation is reported and discussed at the relevant SPC. Artificial grass pitches can support far more matches and training sessions compared to regular grass pitches and the sports pitch strategy recommends the provision of 5 No. pitches across the county to allow for an even distribution and facilitate use county-wide as set out above.