WWFC Application Information Hub
Planning application PL/26/07779/FA

8. The 75-year lease

What has already been agreed?

Buckinghamshire Council and WWFC confirmed that a 75-year lease was completed on 24 August 2026, before the present planning application was determined.

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That means the planning application is not being considered in a vacuum.

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WWFC is already the long-term leaseholder and operator of the site.

The public therefore needs to understand what the lease actually requires, permits and secures.

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The lease may already contain some of the claimed “benefits”

The Applicant relies heavily on long-term stewardship, investment, maintenance, golf provision and site-wide improvements as benefits of the proposal.

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But if WWFC is already contractually required to provide some of those things under the lease, then they are not benefits created by planning permission.

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The Council should therefore distinguish between:

• obligations arising automatically under the lease;

• benefits already delivered or commenced;

• benefits WWFC would provide anyway as operator;

• and benefits genuinely dependent on approval of this planning application.

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Without that distinction, the planning balance risks giving planning weight to existing commitments.

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What happens if planning permission is refused?

This is one of the most important unanswered questions.

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If WWFC remains the leaseholder even if the Performance Hub is refused, then:

• long-term management of the site;

• relief of Council operating costs;

• basic maintenance;

• existing golf operation;

• and any unconditional investment commitments

may continue anyway.

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Those things should not then be presented as reasons why the Performance Hub itself must be approved.

The application can only claim as additional what genuinely depends on the permission.

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What has the Council agreed about charitable land?

The lease also matters because most of the site is charitable land held for public recreational purposes.

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The key questions are therefore not merely commercial:

• what rights has WWFC been given over the charitable land;

• what public-recreation obligations remain;

• what access rights are preserved;

• what maintenance and investment duties are imposed;

• what happens if WWFC defaults;

• can the lease be assigned;

• what controls survive a change of operator;

• what happens if facilities close or become derelict;

• and what remedies does the Council retain?

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Those questions go directly to whether the public benefits now being relied upon are actually secured for the long term.

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Why the timing matters

The lease was completed before the planning application was submitted.

That means there is a distinction between what the Council has already agreed contractually and what the Council is now being asked to approve in planning terms.

Those are not the same thing.

The lease cannot itself grant planning permission.

But it may reveal whether important elements of the Applicant's claimed benefit package are already fixed, already promised, or already required irrespective of the planning outcome.

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The missing evidence problem

The executed lease is therefore highly relevant evidence.

Until the public can see it, important questions remain unresolved about:

• the correct planning baseline;

• additionality of benefits;

• long-term security of public provision;

• the charitable-land obligations;

• and the consequences of refusal.

That is why disclosure matters.

A 75-year agreement governing the future of public recreational and charitable land should not be treated as background paperwork. It may be central to understanding what is already secured, what is genuinely additional, and what the public is being asked to give up in return.