Work on the expansion of a Gaelic Football Club in Solihull looks set to take another step forward. New pitches and a clubhouse are among the plans at John Mitchels Gaelic Football Club in Hockley Heath, where England football star Jack Grealish once played.
The plans gained approval from Solihull Council’s planners last year despite a number of Shirley residents living near the Dog Kennel Lane site objecting for reasons including noise and lack of parking. Padraic Crehan, from the club, said last year that work was likely to begin in 2025 as final preparations were underway.
“It’s exciting,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service last May. “Solihull is a hotbed for Gaelic football.
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“The development is much-needed, we have been trying to get training facilities – it will really help. Local schools are on board too.”
Now it has emerged the applicant has applied to Solihull Council to sign off preparatory conditions which feature in the planning permission agreement. An application to formally ‘discharge’ conditions four (drainage), five (playing field maintenance plan), six (3G pitch details), nine (construction management plan), 11 (surface water), 12 (foul water), 14 (construction environmental management plan), 15 (landscape ecological management plan), 16 (bats), 18 (tree protection) and 19 (aboricultural method statement) was lodged with the authority in early December.
The application, which is currently in the consultation stage, can be viewed by searching for application PL/2024/02978/DIS at https://publicaccess.solihull.gov.uk/online-applications. The plans include new multi-sports pitches across the Box Trees Farm site; the erection of a two-storey clubhouse including changing facilities and function areas; fencing and lighting columns to one pitch near the proposed clubhouse and car parking with improved landscaping features.
(Image: MC Design Inc/Solihull Council)
The application was unanimously given approval by members of Solihull Council’s planning committee when it went in front of councillors in January last year. During that meeting former councillor Jim Ryan, who was sitting on the committee at the time, said: “What is exciting about it for me is it’s a multi-sport application – it doesn’t just cover a minority sport, it covers a multiplicity of sports.
“Unless they get the facilities they need schools would not be able to use it because one of the standards for Ofsted is where children use sporting activity there must be changing rooms and showers. This (application) covers that.”
Manchester City and England international footballer Jack Grealish played Gaelic football for the club between the ages of ten and 14 before going on to make his name at Aston Villa. Solihull is also home to Páirc na hÉireann – the main Gaelic games sports facility in the West Midlands.
That facility, near Bickenhill, has three full-size Gaelic Athletic Association pitches and regularly hosts hurling teams from Ireland.