This post is for readers who aren’t all that familiar with the Stoke Lodge saga – maybe you’re wondering how on earth things got to this stage, and why Cotham School is taking the Council and the community to court. We’re pinning it here, with links to key posts that will give you some background.
One of the reasons we started this blog is to let everyone see for themselves documents that have in many cases been obtained through Freedom of Information requests – so you can assess the evidence for yourself.
If you want to know more about the history of the Stoke Lodge saga, you might like to read:
You can also watch our video from the day of the decision to register Stoke Lodge.
Or, you might want to know more about the current litigation:
- The rollercoaster start of the current court case, including Bristol City Council’s position and the High Court’s view of the matter
- The second High Court ruling to date, dismissing Cotham’s application for leave to appeal.
If you want to know what impact TVG status has for Cotham School, there’s useful information here and also in the post linked below:
The really important point is that Cotham School can use Stoke Lodge Village Green for PE – although it’s choosing not to do so right now, it can come back any time it wants to! It took the lease on the basis that there was ongoing shared public access, and Village Green status simply protects that right. It doesn’t change the balance of use of the field, and it doesn’t stop Cotham hiring pitches out to local clubs. These are choices that Cotham has made, but it can change its mind whenever it wants to.
Cotham School has claimed it needs a fence for safeguarding purposes, and if that’s a concern for you, please take a look at these posts:
- Fact-checking Cotham’s risk assessment, on which it bases its claim that it needs a perimeter fence at Stoke Lodge
- Fact-checking: other schools use shared public space
- Fact-checking how much space Cotham needs for outdoor PE
- A view from the inside – what Cotham’s PE staff think
- Confirmation from Ofsted and the Department for Education that there is no requirement that playing fields must be fenced
And if you’re wondering whether a wider development agenda for Stoke Lodge underlies all this, please see:
- Cotham’s wider plans for Stoke Lodge – development rather than ‘safeguarding’?
- The headteacher’s evidence to the TVG1 inquiry, referred to in one of our fact-checking posts above – an example of saying the quiet part out loud:
Artificial pitches (with more fencing, floodlights and pay-to-play) and hardstanding (coach parking?) are part of Cotham’s vision for developing and commercialising Stoke Lodge. The claim that Ofsted requires a fence for safeguarding has never been true – and if Cotham was happy with grass pitches, it wouldn’t be spending vast amounts of education money going to court.
We hope you can see why it’s vital for us to
invest to protect Stoke Lodge Village Green.
We’d love you to join us – please support us by getting in touch at welovestokelodge@gmail.com for more details.
We need to talk about Stoke Lodge 