As a valued affiliate partner of Harlequins, we wanted to give you advanced notice that the Club will shortly be submitting an outline planning application to Guildford Borough Council, and a grant funding application to Surrey County Council for a new Performance and Education Centre at Surrey Sports Park to replace our increasingly obsolete existing facility.

We believe this exciting new development, that would significantly enhance our capability currently on site, has the potential to provide real tangible benefits to our continued growth, elevate our status and brand, whilst also attracting the best possible talent, propelling our Men’s, Women’s and Academy sides to new heights.

As important to us is our relationship with you and a commitment to support the development of your own rugby programmes. A core focus with these plans has therefore been to ensure our partner schools and Community clubs can directly benefit from the use of these facilities. The Club want you to have the opportunity to use the new Performance and Education Centre and benefit from the professional environment of an elite sports club.

Our aims with this project are to:
1. Deliver a new league-leading Performance and Education Centre to create the best possible training environment for both our Men’s, Women’s and Academy teams to thrive;
2. Provide the opportunity to open up the facilities and run programmes for all of our affiliate clubs and schools to use and experience infrastructures usually reserved for professional athletes;
3. In time, co-locate the Club’s non-playing staff, currently situated across two sites, to sit under one roof – a long-held ambition of the Club.

We are still at the planning stage, however, below is an early indication of what the Performance and Education Centre could provide:

4. A new quarter-sized indoor 4G pitch to allow for all-weather training and drills
5. A first-class strength and conditioning centre, with a substantial gym, cardio room, medical, recovery, and physio treatment areas
6. Separate and equal-sized Men’s and Women’s changing facilities
7. A 75-person auditorium suitable for full-squad briefings and presentations
8. Office space for Harlequins non-playing staff
9. Lounge, amenity space and dining facilities for players, staff and visitors

While undoubtably within Harlequins and the wider rugby world, financial challenges still remain, our owners and Board do not believe we can, nor should, stand still. We believe we have a duty to support the hard work of our Community family, and envisage the potential use below of the Performance and Education Centre by our affiliate clubs and partner schools outside of the senior Men and Women’s usage:

1. scheduled usage of the all-weather pitch facility for grass-roots programmes
2. amateur coach professional development opportunities
3. S&C CPD sessions for affiliate club coaches in the new state of the art gym
4. mental resilience workshops in the auditorium space

Additionally, we continue to maintain our commitment to grow the Women’s game to a place of parity with our Men’s programme. We also want to win the leagues again!

We feel these plans give us the best opportunity to achieve this and we are eager for you to join us on this journey. In addition to the planning application, we are also preparing an application for Grant Funding from Surrey County Council which would contribute crucial financial support for the project. The success of this application and the planning submission will in large part be built on the support from our valued Community family and would therefore like to ask you for your endorsement at this early stage to support our applications.

If you would like to register your support for the project, we ask that you kindly click on the link below or alternatively in the email sent to you with this letter. You also have the option to leave a comment to support your endorsement should you wish.

Feedback Form

The outline planning application will be submitted before the end of the year, with an aim to begin work on the new Centre in the summer of 2025, should planning be successful.

We are incredibly excited about this next chapter and the opportunity it can provide for our wider rugby family. We will of course be in contact over the course of the planning stage with further information to ensure you are kept up to date.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to email consultation@quins.co.uk or reach out through your Harlequins Community Team contact.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Cadogan
Head of Community
Harlequins