We’ve talked a lot about the Avon County Council signs, because those were a big point in the TVG1 Inspector’s report. But from mid-2009 there was another sign at Stoke Lodge, put up by BCC. It seems that the Avon sign that previously stood in the car park of the Adult Learning Centre had disappeared at some point in the mid-2000s (so instead of two Avon signs that counted for this purpose, there was only one).
It’s important to remember that Bristol City Council at this point did not have power to control the use of the land except by making a formal ‘Direction’. And schools had control of their own budgets, with a detailed annual schedule setting out what costs fell to schools and what would be covered by the local authority. For example, minor repairs were for schools to deal with out of their own budget; major capital projects were for the local authority. And that schedule states clearly that external signage is on the school’s dime, not the Council’s.
This mid-2009 sign was mounted on a single pole (unlike the Avon signs) and until the play park was built it was located on the edge of the drive (close to where a car park sign is now). Later it was moved further up and to the left of the drive, on the grass, still mounted on a single pole – which meant it swivelled about, facing in different directions at different times.
This sign is different from the Avon signs. Under the Bristol City Council logo it said:
This sign caused a lot of debate at the TVG1 public inquiry – did it relate to the playing fields or to the grounds of Stoke Lodge house? It refers to ‘grounds’ rather than ‘playing fields’ and says that requests should be made to the Divisional Director of Property and Local Taxation, not the Director of Education. In his TVG1 report, the Inspector decided that it related to the playing fields but that ‘by erecting this one sign Bristol City Council could not reasonably have concluded that it had made it sufficiently clear that it was not acquiescing in the continued use of the land for recreational purposes by local users’.
What the Inspector didn’t know in the TVG1 inquiry – because neither the school nor the Council told him – was that it was outside the Council’s powers to be putting up signs on school playing fields. That was a matter for the school itself, and it’s clear from the correspondence around the commissioning of this sign that the school wasn’t involved in it. So if the Council put the sign up, it must have related to the land they still had power to exercise control over – the grounds of the Adult Learning Centre, not the playing fields. And that ties in with Cotham School’s own evidence – remember that Sandra Fryer, the Chair of Governors, specifically gave evidence that the community’s use of the field was satisfactory to the school and that was why they hadn’t put any signs up.
You won’t find a sign in this spot any more – in 2018 Cotham School tried to replace it with one of their own, and (after local protests) had to make a planning application to try to retain it. That application was rejected, with Councillors on the Development Control Committee making clear that ‘the sign, by virtue of its nature and the wording it contains, would be harmful to amenity…’ , and that ‘Planning consent cannot be used to restrict or prevent free public access to the land’. And so say all of us.
We need to talk about Stoke Lodge 