School launches judicial review over playing fields decision

Cotham School has launched a judicial review over the decision to register its playing fields at Stoke Lodge as a village green.

Cotham pupils have used the 23-acre site since 2011 and a large fence was put up in 2019.

But locals living nearby applied in 2018 to protect the fields as a “village green”, legally keeping it open to the public, with the playing fields declared as such by Bristol councillors in June this year.

The school has since kept the fence up, leading campaigners from We Love Stoke Lodge to launch a petition demanding it is taken down, which currently has more than 2,000 signatures.

In an update shared on the school’s Stoke Lodge Playing Fields website on Friday, Cotham School said it had applied for a judicial review under Section 14 of the Commons Registration Act 1995 to remove the designation of the playing fields as a village green.

The decision could take months, and in the meantime the school said the fence would remain up.

Cotham School says that a number of the fence panels surrounding Stoke Lodge have been removed since it was registered as a village green – photo: Mia Vines Booth

“Local residents have demanded that the school’s fencing be removed but whilst legal proceedings are ongoing, it is not considered to be a good use of public funds to remove the fence which may be reinstated at a later date,” the Cotham School statement said.

“Should the school’s legal challenges ultimately be unsuccessful, the school will remove the fence.

“The consequence of registration is that the school has had to open the playing fields full time to the public, with the knock on effect that unfettered public use means its pupils can no longer use the playing fields due to safeguarding issues referred to above.”

The school has been using Shine Sports Ground in Horfield for its PE lessons since the start of this academic year.

This week, the school stopped hiring the pitches and pavilion at the playing field to local football clubs.

Several teams are affected by the decision, with some booked to play at Stoke Lodge throughout the current season now needing to find a new home ground.

Sharon Parsons, a local resident who lives near Stoke Lodge and uses the playing fields every day, told Bristol24/7 the field was usually teaming with people and football clubs on a Saturday afternoon, until the school’s decision to stop hiring the pitches and the pavilion.

“It’s a shared space, we keep it lovely, we keep it clean,” said Parsons.

“We clean up the dog poo. It just seems like a lot of made up nonsense I think.”

“We don’t really know what’s going on. (Cotham) doesn’t speak to the community.”

In the update, the school said it had made the decision as part of a cost cutting process, while it dealt with the judicial review process.

“Until the courts decide the issue of whether the playing fields should continue to be registered as a village green, the school will a) have to use expensive alternative space for the provision of physical education and b) no longer be able to charge for the hire of its playing fields.

“It has therefore taken the decision to reduce its costs by 1) ceasing line marking of the playing fields; and 2) ceasing hire out of the changing room facilities, the maintenance costs of which significantly exceed hiring fees and 3) reducing the frequency of mowing the playing fields.”

The school said members of the public and community spirts clubs will still be able to use the site without the school’s input.

Cotham School also added that several of its fences had been removed since they were installed, and that its football nets had been “cut up into little pieces”.

Responding to Cotham’s latest update, We Love Stoke Lodge said: “So far as we are aware, the only fence panels that have been ‘removed’ from the site are the ones that were crushed by a falling branch (these were taken away by BCC on health and safety grounds because the school failed to deal with the issue).

“All the other panels are very visibly still there. And the football nets were still in use up to the point when Cotham’s contractors came to remove the goalposts at the end of October.

“The only area of the nets that was cut was where a fox got tangled up and nearly died two years ago and nobody is apologising for rescuing the fox from nets that should not have been left down.”

Main photo: Mia Vines Booth

Read next: 

• Cotham School prevents football clubs from using Stoke Lodge
• Petition to remove ‘illegal’ fence on much-loved green
• School must share playing field with community after decades-long row

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