Marlow Sports Club forced to defend 'eco-conscious' clubhouse plans after residents' objections

Marlow Sports Club submitted plans for a new £2 million glass-fronted pavilion, which will have four changing rooms as well as a bar, a café and a function room, almost two years ago.

The plans, which are set to be debated at a meeting of WDC’s planning committee this evening, have caused outrage among residents in Pound Lane who are worried that the external hire of the function and conference room, possibly for weddings and wedding receptions, will have a “detrimental impact on [their] quality of life”.

But the sports club has defended its plans, saying the conference room will act as a meeting place for the club’s trustees and provide somewhere for organisations that use the club to host celebrations.

Chairman Martin Gray said: “It is not on the plans as a wedding facility or a function room, it is there as a free space.

“We want a facility that can be used by members of the club, who can have a drink at the bar, we want somewhere for the trustees to meet, which they currently don’t have.

“People are saying the room will hold 300 people – it won’t hold 300 people, it will hold 120, and I don’t anticipate a lot of people wanting to hold their weddings or receptions at a sports club because there are other places around Marlow that already do that.

“We are a sports club, not a wedding venue.”

Mr Gray said if given the green light, the club will start its fundraising efforts to raise enough money to build the new pavilion.

He added: “We really want to be good neighbours here. We are not building it to do weddings.

“We have to apply for a special licence to host events after 11pm and in the past year we have maybe applied for five to six such events. It’s really not that many.

“We take noise complaints very seriously. We have a noise manager on duty at every event, we have a noise management policy that has been submitted to and accepted by Wycombe District Council.

“Sports clubs aren’t about weddings.”