“They do not exist in our mind”

These were words spoken by Sandra Fryer, Cotham School’s Chair of Governors, at a Public Rights of Way and Greens Committee meeting yesterday (23 October). She was talking about the four public rights of way (PROWs) across Stoke Lodge – footpaths that the same Committee decided there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ for in November 2024.

The debate at yesterday’s meeting was about whether or not the Council will ‘enforce’ the PROWs in the interim period before they are confirmed by the Planning Inspectorate and added to the Definitive Map. BCC executives had apparently assured Cotham School, prior to them putting the fence back up right around the playing fields, that they wouldn’t enforce them – meaning that the school could put gates across each entry/exit point. However, those BCC execs had failed to read the Council’s constitution and realise that this is not a matter for the Executive, it’s a matter for the PROWG Committee. Under section 130 of the Highways Act, the Council has a duty to ‘assert and protect the rights of the public to the use and enjoyment of’ public rights of way and to prevent the obstruction of them. So, the Committee was being asked to exercise that duty.

Why does this matter? Well, it’s about ensuring public access, obviously, but also because it’s a criminal offence to wilfully obstruct a public right of way. Cotham School showed up at the meeting to argue that it should be allowed to do exactly that. So long as they know BCC won’t take action to keep the gates open, they are more than happy to obstruct the PROWs. The moral philosophers among you may want to ponder that.

And in this context Sandra Fryer said that the PROWs “do not exist in our mind”. Happily for the rest of us, facts don’t depend on what is in her/Cotham School’s mind. And she was quite firmly reminded by members of the Committee that they don’t agree with Cotham School, that the PROWs do exist, that the Council will support the PROWs when we get to the Planning Inspectorate, and that many of the points she made in her statement were plain wrong. Village green law is different from public rights of way, and these rights were gained many years ago. Once a highway, always a highway.

Later in the day, correspondence between Cotham School and BCC execs was disclosed in response to an FOI request. We’ll dig into this in more detail another time, but it includes the following from Cotham School:

So apparently the PROWs do exist in Ms Fryer’s mind. So much so that yet again Cotham School is threatening legal action about them! The school has made a number of misleading statements about the High Court case this week, but let’s just be clear – the judgment says that the school’s rights under the lease are subject to any public rights of way across the field. Many schools have footpaths like this, even on their main site. In Cotham’s case the footpaths are on a site 3 miles away that they use for a maximum of 8 hours a week!

As for the cavalier assumption that ‘we can vary the routes’ – well, once the PROWs have been confirmed Cotham can try, but again it’s not up to them. The school cannot take for granted that it can extinguish or even divert these long-trodden paths – many schools have tried and failed to do that in other places. Because it’s not about safeguarding. If it was, the school wouldn’t have built a fence right round the field so that the footpaths are inside it.

Ms Fryer voiced years ago to a member of our community that she thought eventually we would get fed up and stop fighting. Newsflash – we won’t. In the face of continuous hostile behaviour from Cotham School, and misinformation in pretty much every statement they publish, we will stand here and defend this land.

When she said “they do not exist in our mind”, a number of us felt that was just as much a reference to our community, to us as human beings. That’s the message we constantly receive from the school’s messaging and conduct.

But we do exist, and we do have rights, and we will walk our paths.