Bristol City Council<\/a> decided not to force Cotham School to keep open footpaths over Stoke Lodge playing fields. Although the committee voted to officially declare these footpaths as public rights of way, that is not the end of the drawn out legal process. A public inquiry is due to be held about them this October.<\/p>\nCrucially, last year the committee were told that gates in the fence were open to members of the public, when the school wasn\u2019t using the fields. However, now the gates are locked permanently during term time, although they were unlocked last week for the Easter school holidays. For a few councillors on the committee, this changed matters, enough to revisit taking enforcement.<\/p>\n
So when the public rights of way and greens committee met on Thursday, April 9, they attempted to move a motion, which would instruct council staff to order the school to open the gates. But a legal officer issued a strict warning, before they voted, that this would both take up a lot of time and effort for council staff, and probably result in another expensive judicial review.<\/p>\n
Green Councillor Ed Fraser said: \u201cAt the time I was supportive of the enforcement of rights of way. I think the actions that have taken place since then have only reaffirmed that point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n
Legal advice previously suggested that the public rights of way have not actually been formally adopted yet. Any enforcement action would likely face a legal challenge, because the school is disputing the footpaths are indeed public rights of way. So until the upcoming public inquiry and subsequent confirmation, the council would struggle to defend enforcement in front of a judge.<\/p>\n
That means for the time being, access to the fields remains blocked during term time. In other developments, We Love Stoke Lodge campaigners said that children have been spotted climbing over the fence, creating a risk that a child could get seriously injured due to spikes on top of fence posts. And mysterious bags of fake dog poo have been left next to the fence too.<\/p>\n
Alan Preece, one campaigner, said: \u201cThat fence is spiky at the top. At some point, some child is going to slip and perhaps get those spokes through their throat. Or maybe lose their finger, like happened at Coombe Dingle many years ago. The school ought to be warned that they would be held responsible if there was that sort of injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adding to the confusion, which councillors are politically responsible for managing the lease with the school is unclear. Council staff were asked \u2014 as the public rights of way and greens committee does not have responsibility nor powers to take action on the school leasing the land \u2014 which committee does have the powers. Staff said they did not know and would check.<\/p>\n
The strategy and resources policy committee would likely be the group of councillors responsible for the lease. And campaigners were suggested to focus their efforts there too. In the meantime, Cotham School defended their fence and said the campaign must come to an end. They pledged to work together with the community, which led to campaigners guffawing.<\/p>\n
Sandra Fryer, chair of governors, said: \u201cThe fields are open and they have been open since Friday, and dog walkers are back. We were delighted at the school to return to using the school playing fields. It\u2019s brilliant to see young people there enjoying the fields, exercising and learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe deeply regret the ongoing continuing removal of fence panels, the criminal damage to our property, and the ongoing challenge of people walking on our fields and refusing to leave when staff arrive at the start of the school day. We even had somebody filming our students and a member of staff, and they refused to go away. The fields are vital to the school.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school also applied for planning permission to put up several tall metal poles, with CCTV cameras on top, but permission was refused. The school is now preparing another planning application instead. There are also mobile CCTV cameras dotted around the fields already.<\/p>\n
The 22-acre site was leased to the school in 2011. A fence was put up, then taken down, and then put back up again. This angered local residents, who say they have been able to access the fields since at least the 1930s, until the school stopped them. The school says the fence is needed to keep pupils safe. The bitter dispute over the fence has rumbled on for many years.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s Planning Inspectorate is due to hold a public inquiry about whether the footpaths should be legally registered as public rights of way. This will be held on October 6 in City Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An upcoming inquiry in October could play a key role in the battle over playing fields The fence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,3893,748,14486,2266,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":["post-888314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-bristol","tag-bristol-city-council","tag-britain","tag-cotham","tag-education","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116390001842132367","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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