Hertsmere earmarks £3.5m of developer money to rebuild the derelict Borehamwood pavilion. That leaves £2.4m of £11.4m, and bidding has been shut since May.

Hertsmere Borough Council has earmarked £3.5 million of developer money to rebuild Aycliffe Pavilion in Borehamwood, the council-owned building off Aycliffe Road that has stood empty since 2020.

Cabinet agreed it on 9 September. The same meeting was handed a second report showing how little of that developer money is left. On the council’s own figures, £11,416,006 was available to allocate. If the four bids put to Cabinet that night all go through, £2,365,957 remains.

And the door is shut. Outside organisations have not been able to bid since May.

What the £3.5 million is for

Aycliffe Pavilion sits beside the sports pitches at Aycliffe Park. It used to provide changing rooms and meeting space. It closed during the pandemic in 2020 and has not reopened.

The council’s report to Cabinet describes a building that is now “visibly run down, with graffiti, vandalism and signs of structural wear”, and says its condition “detracts from what is otherwise a valued public space”.

What replaces it is not a sports pavilion. Officers have deliberately designed a multi-purpose community building, so that it can take:

  • community events and local group meetings
  • youth provision
  • health and wellbeing programmes and exercise classes
  • sports activities
  • learning opportunities

The scheme also covers access, parking, landscaping and the public realm around the building. The playing fields themselves are not affected.

The total capital cost is now put at about £4.5 million. That is £1.5 million less than the £6.0 million approved in the capital programme at Full Council on 25 February 2026. Officers say the saving comes from a smaller building footprint and a more efficient design, not from cutting the scheme back.

Cabinet’s decision on 9 September did three things:

  • recommended to Council that £3.5 million of Strategic Community Infrastructure Levy funding go to the scheme
  • approved the award of a contract for design work and the planning application, to a contractor named only in an exempt report
  • noted the £4.5 million estimate, and that a further report will come back to Cabinet before construction starts

The council submitted its own levy bid for the £3.5 million on 6 April 2026. The £3.5 million allocation is a decision for full Council rather than Cabinet, because of its size. It was on the agenda of the Council meeting on 16 September, and the minutes of that meeting have not yet been published.

Where the rest of the money comes from

The £3.5 million does not cover the job. The remaining £1 million is expected to come from two places, and neither is in the bank.

  • External grant funding, not yet named in the report.
  • Capital receipts from the sale of the Canon Public House site. The report notes that capital receipts cannot be allocated before they are received, so the council may have to borrow internally in the meantime.

The report is blunt about what happens if either falls through. If no other source is found, the shortfall would be met by prudential borrowing through a Public Works Loan Board loan, with an annual capital financing cost of about £110,000 that would have to be built into future revenue budgets.

The levy pot, and what is left of it

The Community Infrastructure Levy is a charge on new development. It is ring-fenced: it can only be spent on new or improved infrastructure needed because development has increased demand. It cannot be used to plug a revenue gap.

The second report to Cabinet on 9 September, reference CAB/26/141, sets out the position. After the awards made at Council on 15 April 2026, the council held £11,476,874 for allocation. Four neighbourhood grants signed off in August took that to £11,416,006.

How Hertsmere's remaining £11.4m of Community Infrastructure Levy would be spent by the four bids put to Cabinet on 9 September 2026 A single bar divided into five parts. Paxton Court health centre at Borehamwood, £4,940,000. Aycliffe Pavilion, Borehamwood, £3,500,000. King George Park cafe at Bushey, £450,000. Neighbourhood levy grants, £160,049. Remaining after all four, £2,365,957. The total is £11,416,006. What September's four bids would take from the £11.4m All four were put to Cabinet on 9 September 2026 and are subject to approval. The whole bar is £11,416,006. Paxton Court health centre, Borehamwood£4,940,00043% Aycliffe Pavilion, Borehamwood£3,500,00031% King George Park cafe, Bushey£450,0004% Neighbourhood levy grants£160,0491% Left after all four£2,365,95721% One outside bid is still to be heard. Borehamwood Youth Football Club has asked for £1,781,108, which would leave £584,849. Source: Hertsmere Borough Council, Cabinet report CAB/26/141, 9 September 2026. Graphic by The Borehamwood Post
Two of the four bids are the council's own capital schemes, and between them they account for nearly three quarters of what was left.

Both of the big bids are the council’s own, and both are in Borehamwood. The larger of the two, £4.94 million for Paxton Court, is for a health centre of up to 870 square metres in the Hillside and Kenilworth wards. That scheme has grown from an original £3.0 million, and Cabinet recommended the money only on condition that the council first secures a written commitment from the NHS to occupy and run it.

The figures in that table do not include levy income received during 2026/27, and the report says two further council schemes are expected to bid with no figure attached yet: the Wyllyotts Centre in Potters Bar and the Meadow Park redevelopment in Borehamwood.

What the levy has already paid for

Since the council adopted a new allocation method in September 2025, it has considered 14 bids worth £9,619,246 and made six awards worth £6,028,638:

  • Hertsmere Learning Partnership, £1,640,000, to buy and fit out four mobile learning hubs
  • Boreham Wood Football Club, £1,650,000, for stand redevelopment and a changing room hub
  • Hertsmere Borough Council, £1,980,000, for improvements to Aberford Park in Borehamwood
  • Hertsmere Mencap, £629,138, for renovation works at 49c Theobalds Street
  • Potters Bar Town Football Club, £99,500, for an education classroom
  • Elm Court Youth and Community Centre, £30,000, for kitchen improvements

Why community groups cannot apply at the moment

The bidding process was paused after the levy panel met in March 2026, and has been closed since May. The report gives three reasons: the volume, value and complexity of applications since the new process launched; the transfer of levy administration from the planning team to policy and partnerships; and a pending audit report on the allocations process itself.

Cabinet was asked to change the rules rather than simply reopen the door. Under the revised approach:

  • Strategic levy funding pivots away from uninvited outside applications. Bids will normally be accepted only from statutory organisations, including the council itself, or from other bodies working in partnership with one.
  • Neighbourhood levy grants are capped at £100,000 and will be considered in two open windows a year, from voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations.
  • Neighbourhood decisions move to delegated authority, taken by the responsible Cabinet Member in consultation with the councillors for that area, then reported to Cabinet for noting.
  • Neighbourhood funding remains available only in the non-parished parts of Bushey and Potters Bar.

One outside bid is still in the system. Borehamwood Youth Football Club asked for £1,781,108. The panel supported the principle in March but told the club its application could not be considered in that form, and asked for more information. The report says a special panel meeting will be convened once the club resubmits, which is expected within a few months. If that bid were approved in full after September’s four, £584,849 would be left.

The question at Full Council

The pause was raised at the Council meeting on 16 September. Councillor L Sullivan asked the Leader, Councillor Jeremy Newmark, for the total levy balance when the current administration took control, the amount allocated and spent, the current unallocated balance, and when community groups would next be able to bid.

The written answer pointed to the Cabinet report and said that “at the time of change of administration there was a balance of £19m of CIL funding and through the bidding process the Council has successfully allocated this to a wide variety of community projects across the borough”. It did not give a date for reopening.

When anything will actually happen at Aycliffe

Not soon. The report sets out this programme:

Stage Date
Consultant team appointed September 2026
Design development and surveys September 2026 to March 2027
Pre-application engagement November 2026
Public consultation, if required January 2027
Planning application submitted March 2027
Planning decision August 2027
Final project budget approved September 2027
Start on site October 2027
Completion March 2029

So the building stays as it is for at least another year. The contract Cabinet awarded on 9 September covers only the professional work needed to reach a planning application, budgeted at £278,500, including a £26,000 feasibility study and £130,000 of consultation and design costs. Five tenders were received through the Pretium Herts, Beds and Bucks development framework.

What it means for you

If you live near Aycliffe Park, nothing changes on the ground this year. The point at which residents can influence the design is the pre-application stage in November and the consultation pencilled in for January 2027, followed by the planning application in March 2027. That application will appear on the council’s own register, and we track it on our Borehamwood planning news page.

If you run a club, charity or community group in Hertsmere, the practical message is harder. Strategic levy bidding is not simply paused for you, it is being narrowed: under the new approach you would normally need to bid in partnership with a statutory body. Neighbourhood grants remain open to voluntary and community organisations, but only in the non-parished parts of Bushey and Potters Bar, only up to £100,000, and only in two windows a year that have not yet been dated.

And if you are asking where the money went: two of the four bids on the table in September are the council’s own schemes, both of them in Borehamwood, and together they account for £8.44 million of the £11.42 million.

Sources