Adventure Wonderland and Electric Club Pitch Face Refusal

BCP Council’s planning officers want councillors to refuse two of the most watched applications in the east of the conurbation on Tuesday.

One would turn the former Adventure Wonderland theme park at Hurn into a mix of play, education and airport parking. The other would give Bournemouth Electric Club on Broadway Lane a floodlit artificial pitch. Both have far more letters of support than objection.

They go to an additional meeting of the Eastern BCP Planning Committee at 10am on Tuesday 27 October at the BCP Civic Centre. Three other schemes on the same agenda are recommended for approval.

The quick answer

• Former Adventure Wonderland, Merritown Lane, Hurn: refuse, on one ground only, biodiversity net gain
• Bournemouth Electric Club, Broadway Lane: refuse, because of 15 metre floodlight columns on neighbours’ back fences and missing drainage detail
• Fairmile Service Station, Christchurch: approve a Greggs-style food counter and two jet wash bays
• Southbourne Crossroads flats: approve a smaller roof terrace on Block D
• Mudeford Sandbank kiosk: approve, after the fact, its steps and serving platforms
• The deadline to register to speak was 10am today

Adventure Wonderland: the Green Belt objection has gone

The theme park off Merritown Lane has been shut since 2024, according to the officers’ report. Its owners want permission (P/25/00993/FUL) for a mixed use of the site. The plan includes:

• a children’s play centre called Discovery Village, in two existing buildings
• a leisure and education venue for children and adults with physical and learning disabilities, run by the charity Diverse Abilities
• leisure, tourism and education uses with an ancillary café and shop
• 107 spaces of commercial airport parking in part of the 371-space main car park
• a signalised toucan crossing on Parley Lane and a new path to the car park

Part of it is retrospective. The report says the airport parking and the Diverse Abilities venue are already operating.

Committee deferred the application in June to let officers assess late information. What has changed since is national policy. The government’s revised planning framework, issued in August, now treats a change of use as harmful to the Green Belt only if it does “substantial” harm to openness. Officers say the 24-hour airport parking does not reach that bar, so a Green Belt refusal “can no longer be substantiated”.

Road safety has also been settled on paper. The council’s highways team objected at first, because airport passengers would walk with luggage across a 40mph road with no crossing. The report says a coroner’s prevention of future deaths report, issued in December 2024 after a death at the Parley Lane and Hurn Court Lane junction, named this car park. The applicants have since offered a 3 metre toucan crossing, a 2 metre footway and a relocated bus stop. Highways now say that overcomes their objection, if it is secured by legal agreement.

That leaves one reason for refusal. The applicants agreed before the June meeting to provide biodiversity net gain, the legal 10% improvement in habitat, but have since gone back to arguing it does not apply because much of the work is retrospective. Officers disagree. The new path alone would take more than 25 square metres of grassland, which is above the exemption threshold, and no baseline habitat survey has been supplied.

The report records 55 letters of support from residents of BCP, Ferndown and West Parley, many describing the Diverse Abilities venue as vital for families of children with special educational needs. One more came in after June. Bournemouth International Airport objected through a planning consultant in three letters, all about the commercial parking. Hurn Parish Council “supports the redevelopment of the theme park and would like to see the attraction succeed”.

Bournemouth Electric Club: 149 for, 77 against

Bournemouth Electric Club wants to replace its grass football pitch with an artificial surface, with floodlights, fencing and a run-off area (P/26/03710/FUL). The club runs six adult teams and more than ten children’s teams, the report says.

It drew 149 letters of support and 77 objections. Supporters said a 3G pitch would stop waterlogged cancellations and help girls’ and youth football. Sport England and the council’s environmental health team did not object, and environmental health suggested the lights go off by 9pm. Bournemouth Town Council supported it in general but raised drainage, flooding and lighting hours.

Officers still recommend refusal, for two reasons:

• the 15 metre lighting columns would stand on or close to the rear boundary of neighbouring homes, most notably two in Diamond Place, and would be “overbearing and unneighbourly”
• the drainage strategy lacks the detail to show the pitch would not increase flood risk, which is also why the council’s lead local flood authority objected

The report notes that other floodlit pitches approved in BCP had 15 metre columns set at least 15 metres from gardens, or columns of about 6 metres where they were closer.

The three recommended for approval

Fairmile Service Station, 204 Fairmile Road, Christchurch (P/26/04079/FUL). Motor Fuel Group wants to knock down the hand car wash and the vehicle workshop. A single-storey extension would hold a food-to-go counter, shown as Greggs on the plans, with two enclosed jet wash bays at the back. Christchurch Town Council objects on traffic, parking and noise grounds, and the report counts 159 letters, many about losing the garage. Officers say the site is not protected employment land and recommend approval with these hours:

Fairmile Service Station report.

Southbourne Crossroads car park flats, Southbourne Coast Road (P/26/04091/CONDR). Vivir Estates wants a roof terrace with glass balustrade and a 1.8 metre obscure-glass screen for one first-floor flat in Block D of the 27-flat scheme. A bigger terrace behind a brick privacy wall was refused by committee in February and lost at appeal in August. This version is about 16 square metres, roughly 60% smaller, and set back 3 to 4 metres. All 43 letters object, 38 of them from homes within a mile. Officers say the changes answer the inspector’s concerns and recommend approval. The report adds that the brick wall already built is the subject of an enforcement investigation. Southbourne Crossroads report.

Beach House kiosk, Mudeford Sandbank (P/26/02070/FUL and P/26/02071/ADV). The hut beside the Beach House café, once a coastguard and then a council ranger’s office, already trades as a shop. Officers say that use is lawful without permission. What needs consent is the timber steps, ramp and serving platforms built around 2019, and a sign. 60 of 61 letters object, citing litter, signage and precedent on the sandbank. Officers recommend approval. Mudeford kiosk report.

What it means for you

• Watching or speaking: the meeting is at 10am on Tuesday in HMS Phoebe at the BCP Civic Centre, BH2 6DY. Requests to speak closed at 10am today. The meeting page has the full agenda and plans
• Councillors decide, not officers. Committees can and do go against a recommendation, as the old Christchurch council did over airport parking at Adventure Wonderland in 2016
• If you park at Hurn for flights: the commercial car park on the old theme park site has no planning permission yet. Whatever councillors decide, the toucan crossing would only arrive through a legal agreement after a grant
• Earlier and pending decisions are on our Bournemouth planning news page

We will add the decisions when the council publishes them.