Charterhouse Fields Campaign

CHARTERHOUSE RESIDENTS WIN FIRST STAGE OF THEIR FIGHT TO DEFEND PUBLIC LAND

Socialist Party spoke to Dave Griffiths, Chair of Charterhouse Residents Association after Coventry Council deferred it’s decision to hand over public land to the Academy at Blue Coats C of E school.

What’s happened today?

Today’s U turn by the Council represents a significant victory for our campaign to keep the fields public. We have faced legalised robbery of our public fields through the device of the school becoming an academy.

We had warned the council -both Labour and Tory- for years of the threat to our public fields posed by Blue Coats school opting to become an academy. (For years because academies had been promoted by both the previous and this government) We asked the council to secure our rights of access but either by secret design or by awful neglect, the council, who are supposed to hold the land on Coventry citizens behalf, failed to act leaving us facing the loss of the fields and public access to them. In a densely crowded terraced housing area you cannot begin to realise how valuable the fields are to us. But they are a beautiful spot close to the city centre and belong to Coventry people as a whole.

And despite yesterdays u turn, that threat to them still exists. We have won a battle, but certainly not the war. So we’ll continue to build our campaign and seek support from across the city and beyond.

We know that what was proposed for our area was to be a template for what could happen to many other areas across our city and they planned that land could be given away merely by the agreement of a council officer, not even an elected councillor. Thanks to yesterdays decision, that has been changed and people across the city will still have the right to challenge decisions like this.

We now want to secure the publics right to access land that is already ours.

We want the council to stop acting like powerless administrators in the face of more powerful interests, saying ‘there’s nothing they can do’ and to start to defend and fight for their local citizens that elect them. We want them to start acting on our behalf, to help us secure public rights, It’s been a brilliant start to our campaign and I want to thank the residents of area for their brilliant work and determination and thank Socialist Party members who live in the area for their hard work.

I’d also like to thank Dave Nellist for being vigilant in spotting this decision to give the land to the school was being slipped through. For notifying us and for calling the decision in. While I couldn’t even get into the committee meeting myself (it was so packed) fellow residents came out and said Dave spoke so well for us.

It’s unfortunate that Dave Nellist had to rely on 2 Tory councillors from outside St Michaels ward to ensure his (and our) objections could be heard, but we thank them for their support.

But that will not be enough. We say to them it is your government minister who threatens to impose the transfer of our public land to the semi private academy school. So it’s fine supporting our challenge, but now you must persuade your government minister of our case and insist he does not impose the passing over of the fields to Blue Coats school.

Of course, the school could end this all now. Any costs to the city could be avoided. They could end all interest in CONTROLLING the fields or fencing them off, and be prepared, like the residents are, to share this beautiful place with their neighbours.

I’ve heard people talking about ‘people power’. And I say to any and everyone, if you organise you can change things. We also will continue to work for a council that fights FOR its citizens.

We’re cautious. Left only in the hands of lawyers there is still a major threat to our fields. But we will go on and seek to win full and ongoing access for Coventry citizens, and hopefully strike a blow for all the people of this city.

See related article on Charterhouse fields below...

For many years Coventry Blue Coat Church of England School and Music College has tried to take control of about 60% of the historic park. Their latest attempt has been supported by the Labour Council. The school has applied to become an Academy and, as part of its application to the Tory Government, has asked the City Council to transfer the majority of the Charterhouse Fields to its control on a 125 year lease at a peppercorn rent.

The Academies Act 2010 says the local authority has to grant a lease "for land wholly or mainly used by the school in the preceding eight years". With no evidence provided whatsoever, the Council has decided in favour of the school. However, it is local residents who are clearly the main users of the fields, not the school or its students.

In drawing up the report, which was approved by the Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Lynette Kelly, on March 29th, council officers cannot have been unaware of the battles local residents have fought for almost the whole 45 years of the school's existence.

For example, in 1989 the City Council and the school attempted to prosecute local residents for walking their dogs across the Fields. They had to withdraw the prosecutions in the face of angry protests, and a robust legal defence. In 2004 the school submitted a planning application to put a 2m high metal fence around all the land it wanted to control. After six years of meetings, petitions and protests the planning application lapsed in March 2010.

Now the school wants to take advantage of the Tory Government's plans to fragment education by encouraging the setting up of independent Academy schools, in particular the fast track arrangements for land transfer.

Unlike many comprehensives in Coventry, Blue Coat School is not a local community school. It is a voluntary aided faith school which not only takes its students from the whole of the city, but many come from further afield in Warwickshire. At least 85% of its places are reserved, not for local families in a local catchment area, but for families from anywhere in the city or beyond “who can show a commitment to the work and worship of a Church of England or other Church”.

Despite the school not being there primarily for local families, residents have never objected to a certain amount of dual use of the Fields, provided they clearly remained in public ownership and public control and were accessible to the local community.

But the school's plans would be to permanently restrict access to the Fields, and then graciously allow local residents access to their own park for a minority of the year possibly outside school hours or in school holidays. What use would that be in the winter? Residents would never see the Fields in daylight!

The Labour Council has hidden behind the Tory Government's Academies Act. The Council's report notes "In relation to consultation in regard to lease of land/buildings to academies then there is no requirement on local authorities to do so, however, converting schools are required to undertake wide ranging consultation with stakeholders as part of the consultation process. Headteacher groups, service providers and other stakeholders have been kept informed regarding the proposals for academy conversion for Coventry Blue Coat."

What is missing from that list is any consultation with local people, their representatives in the Residents Association or the local councillors. The school has deliberately kept them uninformed of its real plans! The map in the report showing the extent of land which the school wishes to annex was drawn up on January 25th, 2011. The Labour Council kept that map secret for three months. Nothing would stop the Labour Council from going beyond the minimum provisions of the Act, and telling local people what was happening in their area. What is the use of a Labour Council if it does nothing to protect the interests of local people?

I have managed to get the Council to look at the decision again. A special meeting is to be held at the Council House at 10 am on Wednesday, April 27th. Residents intend to lobby the Council from 9:15 am that morning. A new petition is being drawn up. Various legal avenues are being explored. But the determination of the residents to protect the fields for public use by themselves, their children and their families should not be underestimated. Many have spoken of direct action, of camping on the fields.

Now, at ‘one minute to midnight', the two Labour councillors in St Michael's have issued a leaflet claiming it is they who are 'saving the fields'. It's hard to think their change of heart is unconnected with the local election, or the strength of feeling expressed at the residents’ meeting. Those two Labour councillors were asked, on Wednesday, April 6th, to support my application to get the City Council to look at the decision again. They refused. So I had to approach two Tory councillors in the neighbouring ward of Cheylesmore to get the necessary three votes to require the Council to look at it again. That's Labour all over for you, say one thing and do another!

Coventry Socialist Party will give its full support to the residents in their campaign and use our network of supporters in trade unions and communities across the city as a whole to assist them. If the Labour Council win this argument the document they approved not only gives away a major public park to the private interests of an independent school but agrees that "the approach to lease of land/buildings… adopted for Blue Coat be taken if any schools in the future convert to Academy status". In addition it delegates to 2 unelected Council officers the power to agree leases and other documentation for future Academy transfers - meaning that other communities could wake up to find a secret deal had been done without their knowledge or consent.

This makes the battle for Charterhouse Fields a key battle for the whole of Coventry, to prevent other Academy schools stealing public land in the future.