Today a week-long trial begins in the High Court to determine whether the playing fields of Cotham School in Bristol were wrongly registered as a village green by Bristol City Council.
The effect of the registration (against legal advice) is that local residents now have the right to be on the land for informal recreation at any time.
The case concerns the interaction between modern safeguarding duties and village green rights, as well as the application of the statutory incompatibility doctrine to academy schools.
Ashley Bowes (instructed by Susan Ring of Goodenough Ring Solicitors) acts for the School, seeking an order to delete the land from the village green register under s.14 Commons Registration Act 1965.