Now the club are calling on your support to help turn its ambitions into a reality.

BACKGROUND

Liss Athletic Football Club is the largest volunteer community group and youth organisation in Liss, with teams at every junior age group.

It has built a player pathway strategy which enables junior players to develop and move seamlessly through its age groups and into adult football.

This has been bearing fruit with over 90% of the men’s first and reserve sides now locally based as a direct result of our successful junior set-up.

However, the men’s first team have hit a ceiling in their ability to progress into the National League System (NLS) due to a lack of required facilities at their current Newman Collard Park home.

The club wants to continue its role as a community hub for people of all ages to participate and enjoy football in the village, while establishing itself within the NLS which also opens up new funding initiatives to reinvest into the club and in years to come.

Without making this necessary step, the club may well lose its most talented crop of senior players – many of whom have been with the club since mini-football at five and six years of age.

This could have catastrophic consequences on the very future of our amateur club, which has been providing organised football at the heart of the village since 1962.

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THE PLANS

The plans at The Glebe on Farnham Road in West Liss, include venue upgrades which will hold benefit for both junior and adult sections of the club.

Specifically, a new 50 seater stand, floodlights, hard standing, ball-stop netting and a perimeter barrier around the adult 11v11 pitch, which will be nudged Northwards to accommodate an open junior pitch at the opposite end.

The Glebe is the former home to Liss Cricket Club, which disbanded in 2021. The pitches are currently utilised by the junior sides at the football club.

Without current usage of the venue by the junior sides, the pitches would lay dormant – going against East Hampshire District Council Playing Pitch Strategy, which formally acknowledges The Glebe as a site for football participation.

Indeed, we know there to be anecdotal record of organised football being played at The Glebe going back to the 1960’s. The site is identified in the Liss Neighbourhood Plan as a Local Green Space and Important Sports Facility (Policy 13), with this application aligning to that need.

Vacating its Newman Collard Park home will also create a new space for the club’s U15-U17 sides to play on the site of the current men’s pitch - or split into multiple small sided pitches.

Further, with a junior pitch also planned for The Glebe gives opportunity for midweek winter training for junior sides and potential to enter junior sides into floodlit competitions.

The football club has obtained floodlights from Moneyfields which are currently in storage, and portacabin-style dressing rooms from Baffins Milton Rovers to meet the FA size requirements.

This will enable sympathetic internal remodelling and overdue redecoration of the existing clubhouse into a versatile community space where supporters can meet, while the stand provides welcome cover away from the elements which supporters are not currently afforded at Newman Collard.

A full floodlight impact and arboricultural survey supports the planning application, with the proposed use of the lights on Saturday's October 1 and March 31, 3-5.30pm and two weekday evenings, between 7-9.45pm.

The fully enclosed surround of The Glebe is an FA requirement that the club cannot achieve at its current Newman Collard base.

Planning permission for a change of use from a cricket pitch to a football pitch is not required - they both fall under the same planning use class (Class F2 (c) Outdoor sport or recreation), while the site is not within a conservation area.

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BY THE COMMUNITY, FOR THE COMMUNITY

Liss Athletic Football Club is for the local community, by the local community - enabling children to stay physically active while building new friendships, confidence, discipline and resilience in a safe and organised environment – mitigating anti-social behaviour.

We provide a place of purpose for those volunteers who run the club, while helping to remove social isolation as a valued weekly meeting point for its supporters, young and old.

The club instils and upholds positive local community values, such as annual representation at the Remembrance Day parade and support local businesses and mental health initiatives.

We are privileged that the majority of our senior squad are from Liss who want their local community to be a thriving one, inspiring our younger players while also being given the opportunity for individual growth - which this move will achieve.

The popularity and success of our Junior Tournament and Pompey Legends day during the summer reinforces the value the football club holds in this community.

Now we’re calling on your support once more to back our move to The Glebe and secure a brighter future for not only Liss Athletic Football Club, but for the community of Liss.

Click on the link below to our planning application, select the 'Comments' tab, login or register and then 'Make Your Comment'.

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Search: SDNP/24/05206

Please back our plans by acting now - we need as many supporting comments as possible prior to the March 17 deadline.