“It would obviously be foolish to try to block those routes”

Campaigners who have battled for around 15 years to be allowed to access a school playing field near their homes say they will still be walking through there and are considering continuing a long-running legal battle.

The We Love Stoke Lodge campaign said the decision by a High Court judge to quash the awarding of Town or Village Green Status to Stoke Lodge was ‘unexpected and very disappointing’, but it looks certain to not be the final word on the saga, which has continued since the early 2010s.

Cotham School took Bristol City Council and a representative of the local residents’ campaign group all the way to the High Court to challenge the decision by the council’s rights of way committee to bestow Village Green status on Stoke Lodge, the grounds of a council-run education facility which the council handed to Cotham School to use as its sports fields back in 2012.

Cotham School stopped using the fields in 2014 after saying issues with dog mess, dog walkers and other members of the public were creating a child protection problem for them, but then in 2019, they erected a fence to enclose almost all the land there, which sparked fury among local residents.

In recent years, the residents have succeeded in getting the fence taken down, a number of footpaths across the land to be formally recognised and adopted as public footpaths and then the entire space designated a Village Green, which Cotham School said would stop them using it at all.

The High Court judge ruled earlier this week that the land did not meet the conditions for Village Green status to be bestowed upon it, a verdict which Cotham School said had justified their continued time and expense pursuing the issue through the courts.

READ MORE: Victory for Bristol school in Stoke Lodge playing fields sagaREAD MORE: Row over Bristol school playing field goes to High Court

In a lengthy ruling, the High Court judge did end by saying he expected his ruling not to be the end of the matter, and We Love Stoke Lodge have indicated that they are looking at ways to appeal.

“This is unexpected and very disappointing,” a spokesperson said.

“We are giving detailed consideration to the judgment and grounds for appeal. The Judge made very clear that he was only considering the legal test – and going forward, any appeal will also consider legal issues only,” they said, adding that they hoped Cotham School would be ‘take a more cooperative approach’ in the future.

But public access to Stoke Lodge appears to be enshrined anyway. “The land remains a registered village green now and until the outcome of any further litigation is known,” the WLSL spokesperson said.

We Love Stoke Lodge campaigners talk with police at the playing fields 2019 when work first began to erect the fence

“If the school is ultimately able to put up a fence again in the future, then since there are four public rights of way in the process of registration across the land, and the judge noted that the lease would protect any such rights as part of ‘all rights and use by the community’, it would obviously be foolish to try to block those routes.

“Perhaps we will see evidence of greater consideration of these issues when the school publishes its remobilisation plans. However, the immediate priority is for us to take advice on next steps and grounds for appeal,” she added.