Lichfield District Council has awarded £1,956,580 to 25 community projects this year. Here is every one, plus the £300,000 pump track still waiting.
The first of this year’s developer-funded projects has opened. A new play area at the Victory Terrace recreation ground in Fazeley was paid for with £99,454 of Community Infrastructure Levy money and £900 of leftover section 106 money that had to be spent in Fazeley parish. Fazeley is about five miles east of Lichfield, next to Tamworth (Lichfield District Council, 18 September 2026).
It is one of 25 projects the district council has funded this year from money charged on new development. Across two rounds it has awarded £1,956,580, and a further £300,000 has been sitting on an in-principle promise since March.
The council’s own announcement of the Fazeley opening named five of the awards. The full list is in its March news release and in the Cabinet decision record of 13 July, and it runs to twenty-five. Here it is.
What the levy is
The Community Infrastructure Levy is a charge on new building. Developers pay it to the district council, which then spends it on infrastructure for the communities absorbing the growth. Councillor Alex Farrell, the cabinet member for housing and local plan, put it plainly at Fazeley: the £100,000 “is given to us by developers across Lichfield District”.
Organisations apply, the council scores the applications, and Cabinet decides.
Round one: £1,175,534 in March
Councillors approved these eleven awards, announced on 4 March 2026:
| Amount | Who | For |
|---|---|---|
| £500,000 | Streethay Parish Council | Streethay Community Centre |
| £200,000 | Chasetown Football Club | Changing Room project |
| £105,000 | Burntwood Rugby Club | Pitch enhancement and maintenance |
| £99,454 | Fazeley Town Council | Victory Terrace play area |
| £80,000 | Burntwood Dragons and Phoenix Football Club | Disused changing facilities converted to a seated cafe area with a toilet |
| £75,000 | South Staffordshire College | Lichfield College Art Gallery |
| £60,000 | Lichfield Hockey Club | Pitch resurfacing |
| £36,000 | Lichfield Sports Club and Vale View Crown Green Bowling Club | Constructing a crown green bowling green |
| £14,500 | Elford Boys Football Club | Elford sports field car park |
| £3,000 | Wigginton and Hopwas Parish Council | Hopwas defibrillator project |
| £2,580 | Kings Bromley Bowling Club | Path renewal and green reboarding |
The headline figure needs a footnote. The council announced “more than £1.4 million” and gave a total of £1,475,534. The eleven awards above come to £1,175,534. The difference is the £300,000 approved only in principle for a pump track, “subject to final confirmation of location and land ownership” (Lichfield District Council, 4 March 2026).
Round two: £781,046 in July
Cabinet approved fourteen more on 13 July. The council’s news release described them but did not list the amounts. The decision record does:
| Amount | Who | For |
|---|---|---|
| £151,000 | The Friary School | Cricket pavilion |
| £108,400 | Lichfield Rugby Union Football Club | Floodlights |
| £100,000 | Wigginton and Hopwas Parish Council | Hopwas Community Park |
| £100,000 | Shenstone Playing Fields | Play area refurbishment |
| £80,000 | Drayton Bassett Parish Council | BMX track and sports playing fields |
| £55,480 | Lichfield City FC | Car park and pedestrian safety and accessibility |
| £45,000 | Shenstone Playing Fields | Changing room refurbishment |
| £35,000 | Shenstone Parish Council | Calder bridge replacement |
| £34,584 | Elford Cricket Club | Outdoor practice nets replacement |
| £27,500 | Tamworth Cricket Hockey and Squash Club | Tamworth Squash Club renovation |
| £13,000 | Lichfield Squash Club | Courts refurbishment |
| £12,082 | The Hub at St Mary's | IT and organisational infrastructure |
| £11,500 | Lichfield Rugby Union Football Club | Borehole and pitch maintenance sustainability |
| £7,500 | Lichfield Rugby Union Football Club | Inclusive access |
Those fourteen come to £781,046, the figure Cabinet recommended adding to the capital programme for 2026/27 (Cabinet decision, 13 July 2026).
Shenstone did well out of that round. Three separate awards to the village, for the play area, the changing rooms and the Calder bridge, come to £180,000, the most of any single community in round two. Lichfield Rugby Union Football Club took three awards adding up to £127,400.
The £300,000 that has not moved
The pump track is the one to watch. In March the council approved £300,000 in principle for a new pump track at Chasewater, subject to confirming the location and who owns the land. Six months later, on 13 July, Cabinet did not confirm it. It “extended the in principle allocation of Strategic CIL funding to Burntwood Town Council for the delivery of a pump track for a further 6 months until March 2027”.
So the money is still promised and still unspent, the location question is still open, and the deadline is now March 2027. It is the single largest sum in either round after the Streethay community centre, and it is the only one with no confirmed site (Cabinet decision, 13 July 2026).
Where the money went, by place
Counting both rounds together:
- Burntwood and Chasetown: £385,000, across Chasetown Football Club, Burntwood Rugby Club and Burntwood Dragons and Phoenix Football Club, plus the £300,000 pump track in principle.
- Streethay: £500,000, all of it the community centre, the biggest single award of the year.
- Lichfield city: £529,962, across the rugby club’s three awards, The Friary School’s cricket pavilion, the hockey club, the city football club, the squash club, the bowling green, the art gallery at South Staffordshire College and The Hub at St Mary’s.
- Shenstone: £180,000.
- Hopwas: £103,000.
- Fazeley: £99,454.
- Elford: £49,084.
- Drayton Bassett: £80,000.
- Tamworth Cricket Hockey and Squash Club: £27,500.
- Kings Bromley: £2,580.
Those figures add up to £1,956,580, the same as the twenty-five awards above.
What it means for you
- If your club or parish wants some of this, it is a competitive application round assessed against the council’s priorities, and the council said in March that a further round was expected later in the year. Watch the district council’s news page for the next call for applications.
- If you live in one of the funded places, the award is a decision, not a finished project. Round one was approved in March and Fazeley’s play area was the first to open, in September. Expect the rest to take months.
- The levy comes from new housing, so the money tracks development. Our Lichfield planning news page follows the applications that generate it, and the new Local Plan consultation will shape how much more there is.
- The pump track is the test case. If you want it, the location and land ownership are the blockers, and Burntwood Town Council now has until March 2027.
Sources
- Lichfield District Council, “Council investment helps to provide a new play area for families in Fazeley”, 18 September 2026 for the Victory Terrace play area, the £99,454 CIL and £900 section 106 figures, the equipment list and the quotes from Councillor Alex Farrell and Councillor John Hill.
- Lichfield District Council, “More than £1.4million to be invested in community projects across Lichfield District”, 4 March 2026 for the eleven March awards, the £1,475,534 total and the £300,000 pump track approved in principle.
- Lichfield District Council Cabinet, agenda and decisions, 13 July 2026, item 5, Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Allocations 2026 for the fourteen July awards and their amounts, the £781,046 added to the capital programme, and the six-month extension of the pump track allocation to March 2027.
- Lichfield District Council, “More than £780,000 approved to improve communities across Lichfield District”, 14 July 2026 for the council’s own description of the July round.
Totals in this article were added up from the individual awards in the council’s own records. Where our figure differs from a headline the council has used, we say so and show the arithmetic.
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