Wind the clock back to September 2025. Cotham School was preparing to throw up another ring of steel around the perimeter of its leased area at Stoke Lodge. Bristol City Council’s Economy & Skills Committee was about to consider whether to issue an ‘Article 4 Direction’ removing permitted development rights at Stoke Lodge (which would mean the school would need to get planning permission for any fencing – and in the process consider equalities, heritage, trees, protected species etc – all sadly ignored by it in the pursuit of exclusive possession).
BCC asked Cotham School to consider delaying the construction of the fence in order to make some attempt at repairing damaged relations with the community and planning a more collaborative and non-contentious way forward (as strongly supported by Councillors on the Economy & Skills Committee on 22 September). Shared use of the land in line with the lease Cotham signed up to – that kind of thing.
In that context, here we have (from a Freedom of Information request) an email dated 26 September from Sandra Fryer, Chair of Governors of Cotham School, to John Smith (BCC Executive Director of the Growth and Regeneration Directorate) and Hannah Woodhouse (BCC Executive Director of the Children and Education Directorate) setting out estimates of the cost of stopping fence construction. You can see the full disclosed email on this link (page 5).
The first thing is the claim that the cost of installing the weldmesh perimeter fence is £80,000. Private Eye has covered multiple times the school’s problems with getting the numbers right on this the first time round and it appears the issues are ongoing.
We’ll just note that as the BBC reported from outside the High Court in January 2025, ‘Ms Fryer said the fence had cost about £30,000’. Perhaps we should assume that was the price in 2019 and there has been rampant fence cost inflation in the intervening years? But in June 2025 the loss adjuster thought the claim might be more like £40,000:
So – on 24 June 2025 the insurer says £40k; on 26 September 2025 Ms Fryer tells BCC the cost is £80k. It continues to be hard for anyone to actually put a price tag on that infamous fence! But the point of the email, of course, is to suggest that it would be too costly for the school to pause and talk to the community.
It might turn out that it was more costly not to – time will tell.
What we’re really going to focus on is the CCTV. What Ms Fryer is talking about in her email to BCC are ‘pods’ or mobile CCTV compounds – the ones that blare aggressive messages at people walking on the field. Two of these were installed on the field on 23 September 2025 and a third was added on 20 October. Bristol City Council confirmed in December 2025 that these CCTV compounds are unlawful (they don’t have planning permission) but has repeatedly suspended enforcement action – first pending the outcome of Cotham’s planning application for permanent CCTV (which was rejected on 9 January 2026) and then again while Cotham put another application together (now live) and yet again pending determination of that application.
Cotham is clearly very keen to keep those cameras on site. And we now know what that costs: £10,945.20 for 2 units for 17 weeks from 23 September 2025 – that takes us to mid-January, so another 17 weeks’ rental is now ongoing, taking us to mid-May*. And there is a third unit in place, so let’s assume a further £10,945.20 over that 2 x 17 week period.
That means Cotham has spent – so far – just shy of £33,000 on unlawful CCTV cameras at Stoke Lodge. That’s all education money that should be spent on pupils. And it’s taxpayer money that comes from you and me.
Ms Fryer says ‘we are getting most of this money from our insurer’ – not out of the school’s own (apparently deep) pockets. That doesn’t help you and me, because the school is part of the Department for Education’s Risk Protection Arrangement, a form of self-insurance for schools. So it’s still taxpayer money. But here’s the kicker: we asked the DfE whether it was paying for those CCTV compounds:
And the DfE said:
So that money – that £33k and rising – is coming directly from the coffers of Cotham School. Directly out of the funding they receive to educate their pupils. And it’s being spent on unlawful CCTV instead. And because the field is surrounded by that (maybe) £80k ring of steel (and because Cotham School is ignoring the published view of BCC’s Chief Executive that it should be unlocking the field when not in use for lessons), for the vast majority of time the field is locked and empty. Nothing for all those cameras to see except the birds and the badgers. No one for the electronic voice to shout at. The existing 6 CCTV permanent cameras on site remain live anyway. And still school funds are frittered away.
As someone said on our Facebook page, about Cotham’s second planning application for 8 CCTV towers at Stoke Lodge:
“At a time when parents everywhere are being told there is no money for things like proper SEND support, etc. I would be furious if my children’s school was squandering money like this.”
What’s in greater need of surveillance – an empty field or the school’s use of public money?
- *In passing – yes, we realise that £10,945.20 per week for 17 weeks is nothing like ‘approximately £1,000 a week’ as stated in the email. More basic maths problems!
We need to talk about Stoke Lodge 