January 2026 David George asked - As a "born and bred" Halesworth person, I've noted recent publicity on proposed developments in Halesworth, and the increasing strength of feeling locally. Last week there were planning messages circulating about massive residential plans for the old middle school site - so naturally locals are feeling "good god, what's left of the middle school site to give the town desperately needed services and community space for sport and leisure?". I sympathise with those concerns as we're not hearing anything materially about campus or the town council view on campus situations. It'd be well worth a little campaign of refreshed publicity to show campus intent. As leader of an adult disability cycling group in town (Bike Active North Suffolk), and a task lead on Halesworth Millennium Green, I really do fear for the general fabric of where the town is heading, as it seems to need to re-read it's neighbourhood plan which was founded on community surveys and real needs that were voiced by residents. I appreciate of course that, as a volunteer myself, much of what the campus project does, is resourced by volunteer hours.
Thank you for your email and prompt for an update from Campus. These queries are always welcome, and we will do our best to answer.
First of all, let's address the worry of Campus becoming another new housing estate. People in town are indeed worried about stresses to infrastructure with so much building going on, but the Campus sports provision plans have not changed. We still intend to deliver the two pitches, followed by the gym and attendant landscaping just as we've said in the past.
You're quite right; we do need to attend to publicity, and this is something we discuss regularly. To an outsider, the months of silence suggest that nothing is happening, or has happened, for a very long time. Behind the scenes, however, we continue to move things forward, and we believe a start date is now finally in sight – though not yet known. The difficulty with any publicity before we know this start date is that the progress that is being made is rather dull – contracts, leases, minutiae of planning conditions, surveys and so on. It’s a lot of work but not necessarily something that will make a splash and excite Halesworth residents.
Since you asked though, I'm happy to share the current status which is in two parts:
We believe both above factors are now very close to being resolved and we hope soon after that to be able to announce a long-awaited start date.
So, in a nutshell, we're within a whisker of being able to start the build for phase 1 AND we have the money in place to do so.
To those who wonder if Campus is just about two pitches, our answer is that it certainly is not! The delivery schedule, however, was beyond our control and we were told that we must deliver the pitches first. Now that we are so close to starting work on the pitches, we're turning our attention to phase 2 – the part that will address sports needs beyond football and rugby. We're excited about this phase which has always been part of Campus's plans. As you imply, the wishes of local people, as well as the Neighbourhood Plan, need revisiting after such a long time especially in light of so many new homes being built. In the next couple of months we will be looking again at our original plans and reassessing. This may involve further public consultation to see whether our plans still align with current needs.
I hope the above answers your concerns. Please be assured that as soon as we have the start date for the pitches, we'll be making a noise about it! And shortly afterwards, we'll want to share plans and ideas for phase 2.
Thank you for making contact.
June 2025 Tennis – Several people have asked why we plan to have tennis courts on The Campus when there are already the club courts at Dairy Hill. The short answer is that they are something of a hangover from early versions of the scheme, proposed when many of the clubs at the then Halesworth Playing Field Association intended to move eventually to the Campus site. In later versions of the scheme, the clubs remained at Dairy Hill – and with the recent resurfacing of the courts at Dairy Hill, tennis is currently well provided for in Halesworth. So, why do our plans still show tennis courts on The Campus, you might ask. The answer to that is that the next lot of plans for our second planning application will not show any tennis courts. To have revised the first lot of plans, however, would have incurred costs that we would rather save and so they were left in while discussions with The Club had not yet concluded.
May 2025 Finances – Several people have recently asked for further information about our expenditure on the campus development project to date. We are today publishing an up-to-date summary of income and expenditure, which we hope will answer some of your questions. This is the same table that we are submitting to East Suffolk Council as part of our application for additional funding from the ESC’s Community Infrastructure Levy Fund. This is to cover inflation increases since 2021, when the original CIL award was made. We have also shared these figures with Suffolk County Council. You can see the table here
April 2025 Anne Smith asked - “Why, over the last 13 years, and in view of the lack of progress, has Campus never gone back to the people of Halesworth to honestly explain the situation and ask those people what they would like Campus to do next?”
Since the original referendum in 2012, there have been several surveys of Halesworth residents, asking them what they want for the future of the town – the Neighbourhood Plan survey and the Halesworth Hub survey, for example. These confirmed that improved sports and leisure facilities continue to be needed. Also, research by the District Council, for their sports and leisure strategies, shows a continuing shortfall in playing pitch capacity in Halesworth, which coincides with our priorities for the first phase of the Campus development. Yes, progress has been much slower than we’d like, but there has been a great deal happening ‘behind the scenes’ that has been necessary before construction starts.
April 2025 Anne Smith asked - “Why did Campus never involve the people of Halesworth, prior to their discussions with Castlemeadow Care, and make them aware that the sale to Castlemeadow Care would mean the loss of the vast majority of the school field?”
Some readers may not know about the original plan. Working with (the then) Halesworth Playing Fields Association, the proposals were for Castlemeadow Care to buy (most of) Dairy Hill for its health and care development, and to focus sports facilities on The Campus. When this plan unravelled in 2016, we and our partners looked to see if it would be possible to carry on with the vision by leaving Dairy Hill for sports and selling part of the campus to Castlemeadow Care instead. Early in 2017, we did put out a statement on social media, jointly with our partners, setting out our new proposals. We also put a public notice in the local press, seeking representations (as we were required to do by charity law), about our intention to sell some of the campus to Castlemeadow Care. Since then, we have acquired at no cost an additional field which is very slightly larger than the piece sold to Castlemeadow Care.
April 2025 Anne Smith asked - “If your latest CIL application is rejected by SCC, what is the next step?”
Our top priority is the all-weather pitch, which we are legally required to provide as the first call on the money from the sale of land to Castlemeadow Care.
April 2025 Anne Smith asked - “Should Campus fail to progress their plans for sports provision, would Castlemeadow Care still have the right to build on the school field, as per the plans passed?”
We are confident that work on the all-weather pitch will be able to start soon as the conditions of planning are close to being discharged. The first thing to happen will be the removal of the pylon from the land by UK Power Networks. This work has been booked and paid for, and the contracts are being signed currently. Other elements of the scheme will follow as funding allows. But to answer your question, theoretically, yes, as far as we are aware, Castlemeadow Care would be able to go ahead with their development without reference to progress on the campus.
