The latest Sevenoaks community news: the £2m Greatness Recreation Ground sports pavilion is on course to open in August 2026, and the district's Making it Happen awards return on 18 June to honour local volunteers.

Two stories sit at the heart of Sevenoaks community news this month, and both are about people who give their time for free. On the edge of town, a new £2 million community sports pavilion at Greatness Recreation Ground is taking shape and is due to open in August. Across the district, nominations have closed for the Making it Happen Community and Voluntary Awards, with the winners to be announced at a ceremony on 18 June 2026. Here is where both stand, and what they mean for you.

A new home for 1,200 grassroots players

Sevenoaks Town Council and Sevenoaks Town Football Club are building a new Community Sports Pavilion at Greatness Recreation Ground off Mill Lane. Preparatory work began on site in October 2025, and the building is on course for completion in August 2026.

This is not a small shed. The finished pavilion will have modern male and female changing rooms, a kitchen, a small gym, and a cafe and refreshment area open to the public. It is also being built to run cleanly: an air source heat pump, a living green wall and rooftop solar panels are all part of the design, according to the council’s project page.

The scale of the club it will serve is the part worth pausing on. Sevenoaks Town FC runs dozens of teams across youth, girls and ladies, powerchair and walking football, alongside the men’s first team. At the ground-breaking, the council said the club serves more than 1,200 players across various ages and abilities, supported by nearly 200 volunteers.

It has been a long road. At the construction launch in October 2025, club chairman Paul Lansdale said: “It’s massive for us and really exciting, it has taken us 11 years to get to this stage”, as reported by Sevenoaks Town Council. The then Mayor of Sevenoaks, Cllr Tony Clayton, called it “a triumph for everyone who has worked so hard to get the pavilion project off the ground”.

Who is paying for it

The project is valued at more than £2 million, and the money comes from several pots rather than one. Figures published by Sevenoaks Town Council break down as follows:

  • £787,500 from the Sevenoaks District Council Community Infrastructure Levy
  • £759,100 from the Football Foundation (backed by the Premier League, The FA and the Government)
  • £221,100 from Sevenoaks Town Council
  • £210,000 from Sevenoaks Town Football Club, plus a further £200,000 in development costs
  • £150,000 from the Premier League Stadium Fund

The Community Infrastructure Levy share matters locally because it is money collected from developers building in the district and then spent on local facilities. In plain terms, some of the value created by new building in Sevenoaks is going back into a public ground that anyone can use.

What it means for you: once the pavilion opens, the cafe and refreshment areas are intended for the wider community, not only matchday crowds, and Greatness Recreation Ground remains a public park with pitches, play areas and outdoor gym equipment. If you walk, run or have children playing weekend football there, the changing facilities and the warm space will be a noticeable upgrade on what stood before.

Making it Happen: the district’s volunteer awards

The second story is a chance to say thank you. Sevenoaks District Council’s Making it Happen Community and Voluntary Awards return this summer, with a ceremony at St Nicholas’ Church in Sevenoaks on 18 June 2026.

The awards exist to recognise the residents and groups who keep the district running without pay or fuss. This year there are 13 categories, more than ever before, including Charity Project of the Year, Volunteer Group of the Year, Young and adult Local Hero awards, Carer of the Year, a Lifetime Achievement Award, a Community Safety Award and a Health and Wellbeing Project of the Year, per the council’s announcement.

Encouraging residents to take part, Cllr Lesley Dyball, Cabinet Member for People and Places, said: “This year, we have more categories than ever, so if you know of any hardworking, selfless volunteers and organisations who have made a difference to the lives of our residents, I’d urge you to put them forward in this year’s awards.”

Nominations for the 2026 awards closed on 13 March, so the field is set. The remaining date for the public diary is the ceremony itself on 18 June, when the winners across all 13 categories will be revealed.

What it means for you: if you volunteer for a local club, charity or residents’ group, or you know someone who quietly props one up, this is the event that puts them on the stage. More information about the awards is on the Sevenoaks District Council community awards page, or by emailing communities@sevenoaks.gov.uk or calling 01732 227000.

The bigger picture

Read together, the two stories point the same way. A grassroots club that took 11 years to secure its clubhouse, and a council scheme that hands out 13 awards to unpaid volunteers, are both built on the same thing: people in Sevenoaks turning up for each other. The pavilion will be the visible result this August. The awards on 18 June are the quieter version of the same idea.

Sources

Image: “Vine Cricket Ground, Sevenoaks” by Robin Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vine_Cricket_Ground,Sevenoaks-geograph.org.uk-_6609595.jpg).