Community Facility Seating Planning Checklist

Visit the site at several different times, including a school morning, an afternoon and an evening, and write down who stops, waits or sits down.

Seating chosen from memory serves an imagined visitor, while a short period of watching describes the real one.

Note where adults wait while children play or train, whether they stay for the whole session and whether they stand because there is nowhere to sit.

Waiting adults are the largest group of sitters at most community facilities and the group least often planned for.

Note whether anybody uses the site as somewhere to rest during a walk, and where they stop at present when they do.

A place to rest along a route is a genuine community use, and it puts seating somewhere quite different from anything for watching play.

Where the site is used by a school, note where pupils sit at break and what they sit on, including walls, steps and equipment bases.

Where pupils already sit tells a school more about siting than any amount of discussion at a meeting will.

Note whether people eat at the site, where they do it and what tends to be left behind afterwards.

Eating and litter travel together, and seating placed away from a bin creates a task that somebody has to take on.

Note where adults need to be able to see from while children use the facility, and take any arrangement for that to the school or responsible body.

Supervision arrangements at a shared or school facility are settled by the responsible body and are not designed around seating.

List the walls, steps, kerbs, planters, equipment bases and container edges people sit on now, and photograph each one where it stands.

These places were chosen by users for a reason, and the reason is usually shade, shelter, a view or company.

Note for each place why people might have chosen it, such as shade, shelter from the wind, a view of the playing area or simply being out of the way.

Understanding why a spot works is what allows seating to be sited well rather than positioned symmetrically.

Note where sitting has caused wear or damage, such as a wall coping working loose or ground worn bare in front of a fence.

Wear from informal sitting shows both the demand for seating and the incidental damage that proper seating would relieve.

Note whether people bring their own chairs to the site, where they set them up and what they do with them at the end.

People who bring chairs have already made the siting decision, and it is worth looking closely at where they put them.

Note the places nobody sits, and consider whether that is because of wind, low sun, noise, a smell from a bin or being overlooked.

Where nobody sits is as informative as where they do, and it prevents seating being placed somewhere that will stay empty.

Note whether benches, staging or equipment are currently carried into position for occasions, by whom, and where they are kept between times.

Anybody already carrying seating in and out holds a strong view about permanent seating, and they are worth asking first.

Decide and write down whether the group will accept donated or memorial seating at all, and who holds authority to accept an offer on its behalf.

Offers arrive suddenly and are hard to decline gracefully without an agreed position already written down.

Agree whose agreement is needed on the wording of any plaque, and what the group would do if that wording were later thought unsuitable.

Plaque wording returns to a committee long afterwards, usually with no record of who agreed it or on what basis.

Note whether a donor expects a particular position, and record what the group can and cannot promise about a bench staying where it is put.

A promise about position outlives the people who made it, and community sites are relaid more often than anybody expects.

Decide and record what happens when donated seating decays, is damaged or has to be moved, and who would tell the family.

The awkward conversation is the one nobody plans for, and an agreed arrangement makes it possible to have it kindly.

Check whether any grant or funding agreement requires acknowledgement on or near seating, and note exactly what it asks for.

Acknowledgement conditions attached to a grant are confirmed with the awarding body, not copied from what other sites display.

Keep a written register of every bench, who gave it, when it was placed and what was agreed at the time, held with the group papers.

A register survives a change of committee, while the personal knowledge that usually stands in for one does not.

Note where people already gather at the site in the evening, and whether that is beside existing seating, a shelter or a sheltered wall.

Gathering follows somewhere to sit, so new seating tends to move a gathering rather than create one.

Record what residents have raised about evening use in their own terms and with dates, kept apart from whatever reply the committee gave.

Keeping the comment and the reply separate makes the record usable by other people, while a merged version convinces nobody.

Note which homes look directly onto each possible seating position, including upper windows, and photograph the view from each direction.

A position that looks fine from the site can sit squarely in front of a neighbour window, which only becomes obvious from the other side.

Consider where people would gather if seating were placed elsewhere or taken away, and note which neighbour would be affected instead.

Removing a bench moves people to the next place they can sit, and that place usually belongs to somebody else.

Decide when residents will be told about seating proposals and by whom, and prepare to describe what is known rather than making claims.

Confident claims a committee cannot stand behind do more harm at a consultation than the proposal itself usually does.

Note whether any restriction on the hours or manner of use of the site exists, and confirm locally what applies before positions are agreed.

Any restriction on hours or use of a shared site must be confirmed with the local authority and the landowner.

Decide whether seating should be fixed or movable, and note who would move it, where it would go and who is responsible for putting it back.

Movable seating drifts, and it only works where a specific person or group is responsible for returning it.

Ask whoever cuts the grass and maintains the site what seating in each position would mean for their work, and write the answer down.

The grounds team knows exactly which positions create a strimming job, and they are almost never asked before seating arrives.

Note what is underfoot at each possible position and whether it would become worn or muddy once people stood and sat there regularly.

The ground in front of a bench wears out before the bench does, and that is a planning question rather than a seating question.

Note what the ground is like at each position, including whether it is made up, wet or already surfaced over, and treat fixing as a question for others.

How seating should be fixed, and whether the ground suits it, is for a qualified professional or the supplier to determine.

Note anything known or suspected to be buried where seating might be fixed down, marking clearly what is only suspected.

Anything buried where a bench might be fixed down has to be established by a qualified professional before fixing is planned.

Note whether any seating would be taken in during closure periods, where it would be stored and who would carry it there.

Storage is settled after purchase in most projects, and a bench with nowhere to go simply stays out and deteriorates.

Stand still in each possible position at the times the facility is used, and write down how it actually feels rather than how it looks on a plan.

A position that suits players can be uncomfortable for somebody sitting still, and the difference only shows by standing there.

Note where the sun sits during the times the facility is used, and which positions would have people looking straight into it.

Watchers looking into low sun move somewhere else, which is how carefully positioned seating ends up unused.

Note whether the only shade comes from a tree, and what that tree drops, since sap, berries and needles all land on whatever sits beneath it.

Work to a tree shading a seating position may be restricted, so ask an arboricultural professional and the local authority first.

Note which direction the wind arrives from and whether any position sits in the gap between buildings where it funnels through.

Gaps between buildings are the least comfortable places to sit and often the most convenient places to put a bench.

Note how quickly each position dries after rain, since seating in permanent shade stays wet and is then simply not used.

Seating that is wet whenever anybody wants it is the most common way this part of a project is wasted.

Write down any suggestion of a shelter or canopy and treat it as a separate question, since it changes consent, drainage and upkeep at once.

Any structure with a roof raises separate questions that must be confirmed with the local authority and a qualified professional.

Note where bins stand in relation to each possible seating position, who empties them and how reliably that actually happens.

Seating without a reachable bin produces litter around it, and seating beside an unemptied bin produces something worse.

Decide who looks over seating for damage, loose fixings and wear, and how they would report what they find to somebody able to act.

Any judgement about whether damaged seating remains fit for use belongs with a qualified professional or the supplier.

Note what has happened to previous seating or structures at this site, including burning, carving, graffiti and outright removal.

What happened to the last bench is the most reliable guide to what will happen to the next one, and it is rarely written down.

Ask the supplier how each option behaves in this location, including near the coast, under trees or on a site nobody attends.

Suppliers answer this properly when the site is described honestly, including the parts of it nobody is proud of.

Note what seating already exists at the site and whether new seating is expected to match it or to replace it over time.

Sites accumulate mismatched seating one donation at a time, and a written intention is what prevents that.

Keep the observation notes, photographs, register and grounds team comments together so the same information goes to everybody consulted.

Papers held together outlast the volunteers who gathered them, which matters more here than on a project with a paid client.