County Spending News: Farington Article

 

27/07

from the Lancashire CCMG X account

Farington Cricket Ground

Lancashire's new second home at Farington - now the AO Farington Cricket Ground - was handed over in February 2026 and will stage its first professional fixtures this week. It is a genuine asset: two first-class ovals, a pavilion and training facilities the club compares to a top-flight football training ground. Later this year a covered bowling dome will be added for year-round training.

The two men's T20 games played as a recent test event were relatively low scoring. Supporters and members are keenly anticipating the matches against Kent on Tuesday and Notts on Thursday, and so are the bowlers!

Who paid what

The development was overwhelmingly local council taxpayer-funded. The county council approved a £19.4m capital budget plus £1m contingency in September 2023, since supplemented by £1.87m. Within those figures, the council reports a club contribution of £4m and an ECB £1.6m; the rest fell to the council. The council's subsidy disclosure values the net benefit to the club at £9,715,027.

A November 2025 members' briefing reported an original project cost of around £12m and an actual cost above £18m; the council says the project remains within its budget.

What the club got and owes

The club holds a 250-year lease; the council keeps the freehold, and the club has an option to purchase on undisclosed terms. It appears from briefings that the club is to pay its £4m contribution as £100,000 per annum for 40 years. It's not known if there are any other ongoing financial payments or rent to the council in addition.

In return the club must deliver at least 750 hours of free community programmes a year, at its own cost. Planning conditions cap ticketed events at 20 days a year, prohibit floodlighting and limit non-cricket pavilion hire to 50 occasions. It appears that the club keeps commercial income, including hospitality and, on the published record, the AO naming-rights deal.

How the decision was made

The council was both landowner and planning applicant. Its own Landscape Officer recommended refusal on Green Belt grounds, local objections outnumbered support sixteen to three, and the Secretary of State ultimately approved the council’s planning decision. The £19.4m budget was approved under "urgency procedures", curtailing normal scrutiny. Two economic assessments are referenced in council papers but neither were released.

What the numbers imply

The £9.7m subsidy is a net figure: it likely deducts from the council's outlay the value of the club's annual contribution and its assumed operating losses on the community obligations. The reported £100,000 over 40 years is worth around £1.5m in present value terms so the subsidy calculation must assume significant ongoing running costs of the order of £500,000 per annum.

The questions that remain

The Club responded to an AGM question in 2022 to say it would not need to pay for the construction of the ground, just the fit out costs for which a preliminary budget of £0.5m had been made. It is unclear what budget has been set aside for the ongoing costs.

Members and taxpayers lack answers on: the final outturn cost against budget; the rent and rent-review terms over 250 years; the price and conditions of the club's option to buy the freehold; whether the council shares in any commercial income, including the AO deal and how the community-use obligation is determined.

Farington strengthens Lancashire's cricket albeit at a higher cost than has been publicly acknowledged thus far by the club. Whether the deal that delivered it was fair to the public that paid it is less clear but we should thank Lancashire County Council taxpayers for their significant contribution.

It should encourage more people to play cricket and aspire to represent Lancashire. Not even the mighty Surrey has a second ground so well done to all involved and lets hope we have two wins to celebrate there later this week!

09/07

Those people that have nicked the Ramone's Blitzkrieg Bop are now sponsors of the Farington ground.

03/07

Farrington gets a Go!

25/06

Farington update

Notts Outlaws game there in the Metro Bank, still on the cards but not fully confirmed.

25/03

Projest Elgar

21/03

Lancashire announce dates of launch games for £20M Farington ground

19/02

Lancashire’s new second home brings renewed hope and old grumbles

Club admit they have concentrated on commercial development of Old Trafford, but Farington complex is part of the switch to cricket and facilities

Tanya Aldred

The 2025 season for Lancashire’s men started full of cheerful high hopes. In the spring many, including a now bashful Spin, tipped them for immediate promotion back to Division One of the County Championship after being relegated in the last game of 2024 – as they had done in 2013, 2015 and 2019. It didn’t turn out like that.
Two months later, hope had turned to heavyweight disgruntlement after a run of hapless performances. By the end of May, they were the only team in either division not to have a win under their belt. An innings defeat against Leicestershire in less than three days was the final straw.

The captain, Keaton Jennings, who seemed to be carrying a thousand bricks below those rosy cheeks, stood down. The head coach, Dale Benkenstein – who had been recruited from Gloucestershire, bottom of Division Two – was shown the door “by mutual consent”. Young guns didn’t fire as hoped and even the return of Jimmy Anderson couldn’t cheer things up.
Slowly, though, the season turned around. Old boy Steven Croft, initially as interim coach, guided the team to Blast finals day and a much-improved Championship campaign that left Lancashire fifth in the final standings. Croft was confirmed as permanent coach in October and the evergreen Anderson signed as the red-ball captain for 2026, with another one-year contract, backflipping into his mid-40s.
Chris Green and Marcus Harris return as overseas players for the summer, Ajeet Singh Dale and Paul Coughlin are new recruits and the signing of the former Australian captain Meg Lanning is a coup for the, much more successful, women’s team in the Blast. She will get her first taste of the English county game.
Off the pitch, the big news is that Lancashire have taken the keys at their new second ground at Farington, near Preston. This new complex, a low-rise build on green-belt land, is made up of two ovals – a professional one, for the men’s and women’s first and second teams, and a recreational one. It is based loosely on Christchurch’s Hagley Oval in New Zealand, familiar to anyone who has switched on Test cricket late at night during the winter, gazed at the families and the kids running around and wished English grounds were a bit more like that. The grass banks should be a hit, if the Lancashire weather plays ball.
The club have committed to 750 hours of community work as part of their deal with Lancashire county council and in the words of the chief executive, Daniel Gidney: “We want all the kids in state schools across Lancashire to have a cricket experience. This is not about kids from wealthy families having private nets.”
Lancashire’s membership is a famously disgruntled one. Disillusioned by events on the pitch over the past few years and feeling unloved and short-changed by the management, that the club have concentrated on making money, with cricket and members left as an afterthought.
Gidney admits the club has concentrated on commercial development over the past 10 years– with the two huge Lego brick hotels at Old Trafford. “Now is the right time to pivot to cricket and facilities,” he says. The (ragtag) Old Trafford cricket centre is promised a spruce-up and Gidney is confident the combination of Farington, Old Trafford and a top medical team – and a Hundred franchise – will draw the best to Manchester.
It won’t shock readers that the lure of Farington doesn’t satisfy everyone. A suspicious Lancashire member, who didn’t want to give his name, isn’t so sure. “It’s a selfish point of view to some extent because I’m up the road from Old Trafford and it would take longer to travel there and back to Farington than it would to watch a T20 game there. But it isn’t the easiest place to get to. At least in Manchester you’ve got travel options.
“But the biggest worry from members is that Farington will replace the other outgrounds. And what members love most is outground cricket, Blackpool is my favourite ground and it is always full, it’s such a fantastic day out.”
At the moment, the club are committing to some outground cricket on other grounds (Gidney and the director of cricket performance, Mark Chilton, are said to be great fans), though Farington will inevitably become primus inter pares. The groundstaff are due to start work on the square in April, weather permitting, and the club hope to play a couple of Metro Bank men’s games at the end of July and a women’s game in September. But pitches are capricious beasts.
The training nets and indoor dome, part funded by the England and Wales Cricket Board, will not be ready until later in the year.
“We’re incredibly fortunate, to have a facility like this,” Gidney says “It is unique in cricket … it doesn’t happen because it is expensive and complicated. And we’ve got an elite and community oval – the best of both worlds.
“Cricket has been a bit behind other sports, if you want to drive performance on the field. It feels to me like a Premiership training ground, no other professional county in the UK has a professional training ground.”
The club has not been short of people wanting to have a look around. With New Road flooded yet again, and Worcestershire still unsure of their future plans, the chief executive, Ashley Giles, has been up with his notebook and pen. He said to be impressed. But the most difficult customers to please are yet to sniff around and make their verdict.

10/02

Building work completed at Farington and Lancashire show it off

28/11

Farington 

08/10

Leicestershire Fix Bucket

30/09

Gloucestershire pay off debts

15/09

Kent vision of new hotel complex and pavilion 

05/09

New Lights at Derby and they certainly need them.

27/08

 3.3 million Gloucestershire