Bristol's longest running dispute over a piece of land reaches 13 years - here's four reason's why it's not over yet

The row blew up again this week with the school compared to Hamas by one councillor

It has been the longest-running dispute over a piece of land in Bristol, with a three-way row lasting at least 13 years and counting between local residents, one of the city’s biggest secondary schools and the city council. This week, it blew up yet again with outrage at comments in the council chamber that compared the school’s leadership to Hamas and terrorists.

But what exactly is going on between Bristol City Council, Cotham School and the group of local campaigners called ‘We Love Stoke Lodge’? And what will be the next steps in the saga that dates back to the early 2010s?

When a High Court judge ruled in the school’s favour after a long court case just six weeks ago, his closing remarks at the end of a judgement that took up more than 100 pages predicted that this would not be the end of the matter – and so it has proved, with at least four new battlegrounds in which the protagonists are waging their continued dispute.

What is the dispute about?

It’s a dispute that appears relatively straightforward, but has proved difficult to resolve. The council-owned fields behind Stoke Lodge, a council-run adult education centre, were first used by Cotham School for its PE lessons back in 2002. In 2011, after the school became an academy, the council agreed a 125-year lease with the school.

In the mid-2010s, the dispute began to arise – on the one hand local residents had seen Stoke Lodge’s fields as a valuable open space to walk their dogs, enjoy the wildlife and the greenery. On the other hand, Cotham School wanted a secure, safe place to have their PE lessons.

The hope that both of those things could be possible at the same time, and that local residents and local councillors could reach an agreement with the school on sharing the space, have been continually dashed for at least the past 13 years.

In the middle of this has been Bristol City Council. On the one hand, its education and land departments have recognised the need for the school – based two and a half miles away in a part of inner city north Bristol without fields of its own on site – to have playing fields.

On the other, the council’s quasi-judicial public rights of way committee has repeatedly granted rights to local people to access the land. In 2016, the committee registered the land as a Town or Village Green, but Cotham School went to a Judicial Review and got that overturned in 2018.

Almost exactly the same thing happened in the 2020s – councillors again bestowed Village Green status on it, but in June this year a High Court judge again ruled that the land is legally a school playing field, and should never have been given any other status.

Youth sports teams play on Stoke Lodge, the disputed school playing field space in north Bristol(Image: We Love Stoke Lodge)

Cotham School said experience has shown it has to either stop public access to Stoke Lodge or fence off the parts it needs for sports pitches so that they can be secure when in use. Their concerns are mainly twofold – one that PE lessons aren’t possible on a field that could be covered in dog mess on any given morning, and secondly, that – like any school grounds – the area where students are having lessons has to be secure, and shouldn’t be accessible by any member of the public who can just walk in unhindered.

Every aspect of the Stoke Lodge is disputed between Cotham School and We Love Stoke Lodge – it’s often hard to find any part of this that the two sides might possibly agree on. The local residents’ campaign say it should be perfectly possible for a shared-use agreement to be negotiated, and Cotham School shouldn’t be able or allowed to simply fence off and restrict access to a space that people have enjoyed for generations.

Cotham School stopped using the fields in the mid-2010s saying it was not a safe space. They still now bus their children to the Shine playing fields behind Tesco in Horfield instead.

WLSL counter that by pointing out that Stoke Lodge IS used for youth sporting activities. Most weekends see the pitches being played on by children’s sports teams from across Bristol.

“We have seen a huge increase in club sports with hundreds of children doing football and other training every weekend,” a spokesperson for WLSL said. “It’s a real tribute to Shirehampton Colts, Cotham Tigers and other users that they have cooperated to maintain the grass, lay out more pitches than ever before, with no fence in the way, and encourage so much youth sport,” they added.

Youth sports teams play on Stoke Lodge, the disputed school playing field space in north Bristol(Image: We Love Stoke Lodge)

The school, however, maintains that weekend club use is one thing – publicly accessible parks across Bristol have youth football, rugby and cricket matches every week. But formal school use is another and requires a different level of security and safe space creation.

Cotham School headteacher Jo Butler told the High Court it was her duty to ensure students are safe at school and that, in her opinion, this can only be achieved by a fence around our school playing fields in the same way that the main school is also secure with fences and CCTV cameras.

In his High Court Judgement, the judge agreed Ms Butler is an expert witness entitled to make decisions in her expert capacity as a headteacher. “The judge also confirmed that Cotham School is entitled to manage the playing fields in line with the school’s business in delivering education for our students. The fields are the school’s outdoor classroom and need to be managed in that way,” a Cotham School spokesperson said.

So after overturning the Village Green status in 2018, the school tried to re-establish PE lessons there by fencing off most of the space inside its natural borders of hedgerows and gates.

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

That winter of early 2019 was probably the lowest point of the whole saga. Local residents tried to physically oppose it – police were called. Once erected, the fence was systematically vandalised. Allegations and counter-allegations were made.

Someone was cautioned by police. The school installed secret CCTV recording equipment which was uncovered, prompting a new scandal. The attempt to restart PE lessons there failed because the fence was effectively rendered useless by the damage.

Already frosty relations between the two sides became freezing. A lot happened – even a lengthy summary like this leaves out many of the incidents, allegations, accusations and campaigns.

Local residents returned to the council after the Covid pandemic to successfully persuade the council to not only bestow Village Green status on Stoke Lodge, but also – last November – to get four footpaths across the space adopted officially too.

Cotham School appealed and last month a High Court judge overturned the Village Green status, for a second time. But even now there are four different avenues into which both sides are now fighting, and – as the High Court judge said in his ruling – this is far from over.

1 – We Love Stoke Lodge appeal

The first is that the We Love Stoke Lodge campaign group has until the middle of September to decide whether or not they should, will – or can afford – to appeal against the High Court ruling of June 2025.

A spokesperson for WLSL said that the community living around Stoke Lodge ‘intends to do so’, so the High Court ruling that was made so comprehensively in Cotham School’s favour – that the land was school playing fields and should not be a Village Green – looks set to go to the Court of Appeal.

2 – Cotham School appeal

In November 2024, four footpaths were legally confirmed by Bristol City Council’s public rights of way committee. That means, even without a Village Green status, public access at all times to at least some linear routes across the fields, is currently enshrined in law – and that means Cotham School will find it a challenge either to conduct PE lessons to their desired level of secure space, or to fence off all or even part of the land they lease.

So the school is taking the council to an appeal again. This time, the arena will be a public inquiry led by a planning inspector, who will decide whether the councillors were right to confirm the public footpaths last year.

Cotham School says it is confident of winning this too, pointing out that the footpaths were confirmed when the fields were a Village Green, and with the High Court judge firmly declaring Stoke Lodge is legally a school playing field, that should negate any claims of footpaths. Legally, the school says, school playing fields aren’t supposed to have footpaths across them.

3 – Permitted development rights

After losing the High Court case, We Love Stoke Lodge have gone back to the council again. At present, as the long-term leaseholder of the land, there is nothing stopping Cotham School from erecting a fence without the need for planning permission, under permitted development rights.

Fearing the school might well do just that again, the local residents have been asking councillors to invoke obscure planning regulations that might stop that.

The fence under construction at Stoke Lodge playing fields back in 2019(Image: BristolLive)

They first went back to the Rights of Way Committee and successfully lobbied them to ask the council’s policy committee to withdraw those permitted development rights. That meeting happened on Monday, and was the setting for the remarks from Cllr Richard Eddy about Cotham School and Hamas, that sparked such fury and offence.

The committee decided not to make a decision, preferring to wait to see what happens next on the ground.

4 – Costs

Years and years of legal challenges, applications, judicial reviews and appeals have meant that, so far, the main winner has been the lawyers. A side battle appears to be currently raging over the costs of all this – who should pay and how much?

The two sides can’t even agree on how much is involved here. The judge ruled that We Love Stoke Lodge’s Kathy Welham will have to pay 90 per cent of Cotham School’s costs, while the city council should pay ten per cent. He ordered that £85,203 of that should be paid by Ms Welham by the end of July – something which she said she has now done.

She thanked the local community around Stoke Lodge, who have donated to a legal fund for years. “We are, as always, standing together and standing by our commitment and obligations,” she said.

“Recent events have only strengthened the community’s determination to protect shared use of this precious green space for future generations. The community has always welcomed Cotham School’s use of Stoke Lodge for PE lessons in accordance with the terms of its lease.

Campaigners attend the Stoke Lodge playing fields protest in 2018(Image: Martin Bennett)

“We have consistently sought to promote compromise options to share the space, and my Village Green application was made with the objective of ensuring that all parties, including the school, could go on sharing the land as they have done for decades,” she added.

That £85,203 bill is only around 40 per cent of the total. Bristol Live understands Cotham School put that figure at as much as £240,000, while We Love Stoke Lodge reckon they will only have to end up paying £150,000.

Even then, how much the total bill for WLSL will be subject to more legal wrangling in a process called ‘detailed assessment’, where all sides return to court to thrash out how much should be paid.

Bristol’s longest running dispute over a piece of land reaches 13 years – here’s four reason’s why it’s not over yet

Tags: