The council plans to offer the old Stoke Mandeville sports club's northern field for community use for a year, and give the southern field to Booker Park School.
Buckinghamshire Council plans to split the former county council sports and social club in Stoke Mandeville in two. The northern field would be put on the market for community use for up to a year. The southern field would go to Booker Park School, so it can expand.
Cabinet is asked to agree the plan at 11am today, Wednesday 14 October. It is the council’s answer to a High Court ruling last year that quashed its permission for 100 homes on the land. Stoke Mandeville is about three miles south of Aylesbury town centre.
What Cabinet is asked to agree
The report to Cabinet splits the 3.7 hectare site into three parts:
- the Northern Field, to be marketed and ultimately sold
- the Southern Field, kept by the council as education land for Booker Park School
- an access road for the school, which it needs for a new one-way drop-off route
The clubhouse and the land around it would stay with the council at least until the access road is built. The report says a further decision on that part will be needed later.
The Northern Field would be marketed for community use for a 12-month period. If a viable community offer comes in during the first 12 weeks, officers can bring it to councillors and end the marketing early. The report’s timetable describes the marketing as running for “minimum of 12 weeks”, so the two parts of the report do not quite match.
Planning officers have told the council what “viable” means here. A bidder must have the money to buy the site, and the money and ability to run it as a community facility over time.
Why the council has to do this
The council decided to close the club in July 2017, according to the judgment, and it shut in 2018. The Cabinet report says it had become unviable. In 2022 Cabinet agreed to seek planning permission for housing on it, and outline permission for 100 homes was granted on 29 August 2024.
Stoke Mandeville Parish Council challenged that decision in the High Court. On 16 May 2025 Mrs Justice Lieven quashed the permission and ordered the application to be decided again (judgment, [2025] EWHC 1213 (Admin)). The council was both the applicant and the planning authority.
The judge upheld two of the parish council’s three grounds:
- the council had misread Policy I2 of the Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan, which protects existing sports and recreation facilities
- it had got Policy I3 wrong, the policy that protects community facilities
Policy I3 says a community facility can only be lost after it has been marketed for at least 12 months with proof of no viable interest. The judgment records that councillors had been told the parish council’s bid was irrelevant to their decision, with no assessment of whether it was viable. The judge found that was not correct. A third ground, that it was irrational to treat the site as no longer an existing facility, was rejected.
The parish council’s bid
Stoke Mandeville Parish Council first offered to buy the site in February 2024 and updated its offer in September 2025. Officers have been meeting it since the ruling, the report says.
The council will not take that offer as it stands. Two reasons are given:
- buying the whole site would stop Booker Park School expanding
- there is no proof the offer is best value, which the law requires when a council sells land
The parish council will be asked to bid again for the Northern Field only, with a revised business plan. Its bid would be judged in an open marketing process alongside anyone else’s.
The report also says plainly that if the parish council’s current offer were accepted, the council would miss the money it has pencilled in for the sale. That target is in a confidential appendix. The sale was expected in 2026/27 and is now forecast for 2027/28.
86 more places at Booker Park School
Booker Park School in Stoke Mandeville teaches children with special educational needs and disabilities. It wants to build over its current outdoor space, so it needs the Southern Field to replace it.
The report says the expansion would create 86 more places for children with SEND. That is about 10% of the extra places the council says it needs. The project was named in the council’s SEN sufficiency strategy for 2022 to 2027 but was pushed back because of the court case.
The school already lets the community use its sports facilities outside school hours. The council says the Southern Field would be added to that arrangement, so residents could hire it.
What happens if no one makes a viable bid
If no viable community bid arrives, the council can ask for the land to be considered for another use. In practice that means housing again. The report says the planning application would be resubmitted, and the site is already allocated for 100 homes in the council’s draft Local Plan.
The council’s timetable:
- October 2026: councillors and officers meet the parish council about a revised bid; marketing of the Northern Field begins
- October 2027 or earlier: Cabinet decides whether to sell to the parish council or another community group
- October 2027: the council secures the Southern Field as school land
What it means for you
If you are part of a club, charity or community group that could run a sports ground or community space in Stoke Mandeville, this is the opening. Watch for the council’s marketing of the Northern Field this autumn. Any bid will have to show the money to buy the land and a plan to run it.
The site is in the Aylesbury South East ward. Its councillors are Sherrilyn Bateman and Tim Dixon.
The playing fields were left out of the village’s green space protections when the Stoke Mandeville neighbourhood plan was made. Other planning decisions around Aylesbury are on our planning news page.
We will update this story with Cabinet’s decision.
Sources
- Buckinghamshire Council, Cabinet agenda for 14 October 2026 and the Stoke Mandeville community marketing report
- High Court, R (Stoke Mandeville Parish Council) v Buckinghamshire Council [2025] EWHC 1213 (Admin), 16 May 2025
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