High Court orders the deletion of school playing fields from village green register

After a hotly contested six-day trial in January 2025, hearing from eight witnesses, HHJ Matthews has ordered Bristol City Council to delete a 22-acre site at Stoke Lodge Playing Fields, Stoke Bishop, Bristol from the village green register.

The judgment will be of interest to all those advising in public rights of way, easements and village green matters.

The Judge considered every single one of the Claimant’s submissions:

1. Village green registration was incompatible with the use of the land for educational purposes. Accordingly, the doctrine of statutory incompatibility prevented registration of the land. It was legally irrelevant that the land was leased to an academy school by the City Council (para.270).
2. Signs warning members of the public not to trespass at vehicular and pedestrian entrances to the land were sufficient to render the use contentious and therefore not “as of right”. The fact there was not a sign at every entrance or that the signs bore the name of a Council which was abolished in 1996 was irrelevant in circumstances where the vast majority of users either saw or passed an entrance where there was a sign (para.298).
3. The landowner and leaseholder objections to a previous village green application were sufficient to render the subsequent use of the land contentious and therefore not “as of right” (para.305).
4. The lease from the City Council to the academy school did not prevent the school from stopping the public from using the land for informal recreation but, if that was its true meaning, the use of the land would have been permissive and not as of right (para.308).
5. The use of the pitches for playing football, cricket and athletics was materially different to the “give-and-take” between the public and the golfers in Lewis or the forklift trucks in TW Logistics, instead it amounted to displacement. Accordingly, the use of the land had not been for a continuous period of 20 years (para.313).
6. To the extent that users interfered with games, their use was not “lawful” as it amounted to a criminal offence under s.547 Education Act 1996 (para.316).
7. The land ought never to have been registered and, pursuant to s.14 Commons Registration Act 1965, it was “just” to amend the register by ordering the deletion of the land (paras.320-327).

The judgment allows the school to regulate public access during its use by the school, allowing it to be used for its intended educational purpose, in line with modern safeguarding standards.

The case is one of only three successful reported claims under s.14 of the 1965 Act to delete land from the village green register.

Dr Ashley Bowes acted for the successful claimant, Cotham School, instructed by Susan Ring of Goodenough Ring Solicitors.

A copy of the judgment is available here.