Peterborough campaigners secure legal advice that questions 'sole educational use' of Werrington Fields
Dispute has raged for six years
Campaigners seeking to preserve public access to Peterborough’s Werrington Fields have mounted a legal challenge to the status of the land.
Protesters with Save Werrington Fields say they have sought legal advice that challenges the notion that the open space, which sits next to the Ken Stimpson Academy, is or was ever intended to be purely educational land.
Solicitors for the campaigners, in a letter to Peterborough City Council chief executive Matthew Gladstone, state: “Land used partly for educational use does not make it exclusively education land; the majority of the time the public also has always had unimpeded access across the area.
"The land is therefore in dual – or mixed – use.”
Residents have enjoyed access to Werrington Fields for more than 40 years and are battling moves by the council, which claims the land is intended for educational use, to allow the academy to fence off land known as Area C.
Its ruling cabinet had agreed on July 16, to give a 125 years lease for Area C, the size of eight football pitches, to the academy and for the site to be fenced off to safeguard pupils.
However, that decision has been challenged and referred to a future meeting of the full council for review.
The campaigners’ legal advisers, Richard Buxton Solicitors, point out to the council that although there was an agreement in 1984 that the academy should use the fields, the public still had access to the land.
The letter states: “Since its creation the area has also been used by local residents for recreation and as a public open space.
"This accepted use is reflected in public access points, litter and dog waste bins, and in particular, the lack of fencing.
“The 1984 agreement allowed “priority use” only of Area C land by the school for a set number of hours in an academic year.
"In other words, the periodic use of Area C as school playing fields was never envisaged to be exclusive or permanent.”
The solicitors also claim a decision by the Secretary of State for Education last year to refuse to allow part of the field to be for public use was flawed as it was based on the ‘erroneous assumption’ that the land was already solely education land.