#NotAllSchools…

We’ve spent some time going through the actions Cotham School took to get a fence put up to restrict public access to Stoke Lodge Playing Fields, and the arguments it used to get its way. Now we want to stop for a moment and say that not all schools are like that.

Our case study concerns Fairfield High School (which incidentally used to use Stoke Lodge for PE, from the mid-60s up to September 2000). Fairfield now has some sports facilities close to its site on Allfoxton Road, and also has long-term use of the grass pitches on Muller Road Recreation Ground as detached playing fields. This large open space is split into two levels, with pitches on both the upper and lower levels. Under Bristol byelaws, members of the public can walk their dogs off-lead anywhere here, without restrictions.

In 2016 there was a major refurbishment project for the pavilion and the pitches next to it on the upper level. But rather than using this as an excuse to fence off the pitches and exclude the community, Fairfield took a completely different approach. There was consultation with the community and an understanding by the school that ‘as Open Space, the site will be used as it is currently by local residents’, including for dog walking:

What’s better for the environment and far less antagonistic to the community than a fence? Different mowing regimes are used to differentiate pitches, pathways and spectator areas, because ‘it is important that consideration is given to dog walkers, joggers and the general public who currently use the playing fields’:

So you see, not all schools behave the way that Cotham School has done at Stoke Lodge. There is no ‘requirement’ that makes a school act that way.

How different might things have been if Cotham had done what Fairfield did? What if they had talked, rather than installing signs renaming the site ‘Cotham School Playing Field’ and then turning up with a riot van and body-worn cameras to install 1.6km of inappropriate fencing around this historic parkland with no consultation and, as they admitted themselves, no recognition at all of the community’s presence? What if they had considered the needs of local people with access needs or mobility issues, and provided appropriate access and pathways? What if they had agreed to use moveable pitch fencing rather than fencing the community out of the whole 23 acres? Things could have been very different.

In a world where you can be anything, #BeMoreFairfield.