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Checklists · Community facilities

Community & School Facility Checklists

Shared facilities answer to more people than a private project does. These checklists help a committee member, school representative or community group capture who uses the space and when, plan consultation, and agree access, supervision and upkeep arrangements.

Nothing here determines capacity, crowd safety, fire safety, safeguarding or accessibility, and nothing states equipment safety standards or play-surface criteria. Those belong with qualified professionals, the relevant authority and the governing body.

26 checklists in this category

What this area covers

Planning topics in this category

Each checklist prepares one specific conversation or decision point. None of them determines compliance, suitability or cost.

Who uses the facility, and when
Consultation and shared-access arrangements
Supervision, storage and signage planning
Upkeep and handover topics to agree

Checklists in this category

Browse by project stage

Each checklist sits at the earliest point in a project where it becomes useful. Every checklist in this category appears in exactly one stage below.

Thinking it through (5)Early planning (14)Brief & professionals (5)Design & decisions (1)Before & during the work (1)

Thinking it through

Before anything is committed — working out whether the idea suits you at all.

Community Sports Area Planning →Preparation for a group planning a shared sports area: who already uses the ground, who holds a key, who cuts the grass, and which questions belong with others.Play Area Planning Questions →Questions to prepare before a play area is designed: who plays here already, where carers wait, what lies beyond every edge, and which decisions belong with specialists.Outdoor Fitness Area Planning →Preparation for an outdoor fitness area: who actually asked for it, where people will use it unwatched, what the ground is like, and who keeps moving parts in order.Community Facility Use Planning →A working record of who would use a shared facility, when they would use it and what each group needs from it, gathered before any of it becomes a design brief.Facility Stakeholder Record →Preparation for a committee writing down everyone with a stake in a shared facility: who holds the ground, who speaks for each group, and who has to be told or asked.

Early planning

Gathering what you already know and shaping the project before drawings begin.

School Sports Area Planning →What a school should write down before an outdoor sports project is designed: what the timetable really does with the space, who comes in out of hours, and what an occupied site needs.Multi-Use Games Area Planning →A shared games area has to serve several sports at once: work out which of them will really be played, how lines and fixings collide, and who runs the place afterwards.Facility Consultation Prep →Preparation for consulting neighbours, users and the wider community about a shared facility, covering who to ask, what to show them and how to record what comes back.School Timetable Questions →Questions a school representative can prepare about how a facility would sit within the teaching day, the terms and use outside school hours, before others are approached.Shared Facility Access →How people, deliveries and machinery reach a shared facility, who is able to let them in, and which of those arrangements have to be confirmed with the landowner.Facility Lighting Questions →Questions for a committee or school preparing a lighting discussion for a shared facility: which groups want it, who would switch it off and whose supply it runs from.Facility Surface Questions →A preparation checklist for committees and schools setting out every activity a shared surface must take, who genuinely maintains it and which decisions sit with specialists.Facility Fencing Questions →What a boundary is really being asked to do at a shared site, who ends up holding a way in, how people already cross the ground and which decisions sit elsewhere.Facility Seating Planning →Where people already sit at a shared facility, what a donated or memorial bench commits a group to, and who keeps seating in order once the committee has changed.Facility Signage Planning →Planning preparation for signs at a shared facility: what each sign is really for, who agrees the wording, and who updates it when the contact or arrangement changes.Facility Parking Questions →A record of how people already arrive at a shared site, what a busy fixture does to the streets around it, and which parking questions belong with the local authority.Facility Noise Questions →Preparation for the noise side of a shared facility: the sounds it makes away from play itself, who hears them and when, and which questions belong with others.Inclusive Use Questions →Capturing who a shared facility currently serves, who is missing from it, and which access questions have to be put to qualified professionals and the local authority.Facility Documentation Prep →A working list of the ownership papers, site information, decision records and correspondence a shared facility project needs assembled before any professional is briefed.

Brief & professionals

Writing the brief and preparing the conversations with qualified professionals.

Facility Storage Planning →How to record what every group using a shared facility needs to store, how one store would be divided between them, and which storage questions belong with others.Facility Waste Planning →Everything a shared facility throws away — what each session leaves behind, where bins would stand, how full ones leave the site and who is expected to empty them.School Sports Storage →Preparation for where school sports kit lives: what a teaching day asks of a store, who else keeps things in it, and which storage questions belong with others.Facility Supervision Questions →Who is present when a shared facility is in use, how it gets opened and closed, and which oversight questions belong with the relevant authority rather than the committee.Facility Phasing Decisions →Separating what a shared facility needs in order to open from what could genuinely follow later, plus the sequencing questions that belong with qualified professionals.

Design & decisions

The layout, material and finish decisions worth recording as the design develops.

Facility Maintenance Planning →Once a shared facility is in use it generates upkeep. This helps a group set out each task element by element, name who carries it out, and see which checks sit elsewhere.

Before & during the work

Site logistics, coordination and the questions that arise once work is under way.

Facility Handover Preparation →Preparing for the point a shared facility passes to the group that will run it, covering the documents to request, the demonstrations to attend and the upkeep to confirm.

Go deeper

Related Build Design Hub guides

Explanatory guidance behind the decisions these checklists prepare you for.

Sports facility planning →Explanatory guides on facility planning.Football fields & training grounds →Background on pitch and training facility projects.Commercial court facilities →How multi-user court facilities are usually planned.All checklist categories →Back to the full Project Planning Checklists library.