Academy launches legal challenge after council registers land as village green

An academy school intends to take Bristol City Council to court in a dispute over playing fields.

A statement by Jo Butler, headteacher of Cotham School, said this concerned whether Stoke Lodge Playing Fields should be registered as a village green.

Ms Butler said the school lacked sufficient outdoor space for physical education and had from 2011 leased the playing fields.

This though caused safeguarding concerns because there is open access to the fields, with uncontrolled dogs, strangers in the changing rooms and ”potential risk of harm to students and staff from uninvited members of the public, the risk of students absconding and the general atmosphere of pupils and teachers being made to feel unwelcome by other users of the playing fields”.

Bristol in June 2018 refused to register the fields as a village green and the school fenced them, though allowed public access when not in use by the school.

Local residents applied again to register a village green and although this was recommended for refusal by the council’s village green inspector, its Public Rights of Way and Greens Committee granted village green status in June 2023, Ms Butler said.

She said the school intended to apply to the High Court under s14 of the Commons Registration Act 1965 to remove the village green registration.

The school had also launched proceedings in the Planning Court for judicial review of the council’s decision to register the land, which has been stayed until the first case is resolved.

Ms Butler said the school had rejected calls to remove the fence since it would need to be reinstated were it to win its case.

She said: “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.”

A spokesperson for Bristol City Council said it was unable to comment on active legal proceedings.

Mark Smulian