The council wants to replace Northwich rugby club's changing rooms at Moss Farm. The plans add team rooms, a function room and room to grow later.

The changing rooms used by Northwich Rugby Union Football Club at Moss Farm would be largely knocked down and rebuilt under plans submitted by the council.

Cheshire West and Chester Council, which is running a programme of improvements at the Moss Farm Leisure Complex on Moss Lane, has applied for planning permission to replace them. The application, reference 26/03381/FUL, was validated on Tuesday 10 November (planning register).

Why the old rooms are going

The architects’ design statement says the existing building is “very tired and dysfunctional”. Its changing rooms “fall significantly short of RFU standards in both size and functionality” (design and access statement).

The team looked first at keeping the old walls and foundations. Structural surveys then found “significant safety and structural concerns”, so the scheme became mostly new build. Parts of the existing clubhouse and the Buccaneers office are kept and joined to the new building.

What the plans include

The first phase, as drawn, is a single-storey building with:

  • four team changing rooms and a larger changing room for visiting sides
  • male and female changing facilities and an officials’ changing room
  • a physio room, and accessible toilets for public use on the side facing the playing fields
  • a function room of about 83 square metres with a bar, opening through folding doors onto an outdoor seating area
  • an air source heat pump, cycle storage and new landscaping

The statement says brick and slate from the demolition may be reused in the outdoor seating area.

A second phase would extend the building again “when funding permits”. Until then, the space set aside for it would be used for a temporary marquee.

The club

The statement describes the club, founded in 1964, as having grown to include junior, veterans’, women’s and girls’ teams. It says the design was worked out with the club and follows Rugby Football Union guidance on changing rooms.

The council’s own Moss Farm page lists the rugby changing rooms among its improvements for the site, timed for autumn 2026 to summer 2027. The same programme has already brought a second 3G pitch and a new pedestrian entrance off Dahlia Crescent. Main car park improvements are listed for summer 2027 and resurfacing of the access road for autumn 2027.

The design statement does not give a cost or say how the work will be paid for.

What it means for you

If you play, coach or watch at Moss Farm, the plans are open to view on the council’s planning register now. Anyone can comment on them there. The register did not show a closing date for comments on 11 November.

A decision has not been made yet. The council’s site programme puts the work between autumn 2026 and summer 2027.