'New information' delays playing fields decision

A final decision on plans to fence off school playing fields used by city residents due to safety concerns has been delayed, after "new information" came to light.

Peterborough City Council was due to vote on proposals to lease part of Werrington Fields to Ken Stimpson Academy at a meeting on Wednesday.

Mayor Marco Cereste said the council had received a letter, which came from the Department for Education (DfE), that "all councillors need to read and digest before they make any kind of decision".

He said the matter could then be revisited at the council's next meeting attended by all councillors, currently scheduled for 19 February.

Ken Stimpson Academy has wanted a fence erected since 2019, citing safeguarding concerns as the land has been shared by the public and pupils.

However, local campaigners said the fields had been shared for about 40 years and believed public access should not be heavily reduced.

Peterborough City Council (PCC) proposed that all of the land designated for educational use should be leased to the 4Cs Academy Trust under an 125-year agreement, while a Community Use Agreement would enable some further uses of the playing fields outside school hours.

It also proposed bearing half of the cost of supplying and erecting the fence, estimated to be about £40,000.

The proposals would have been debated by councillors at the meeting, had the decision not subsequently been delayed.

The new letter, which was published online by Peterborough's MP Andrew Pakes, stated that negotiations over the lease were "not a matter for the DfE".

The DfE said in its letter: "When a school converts to academy status, it is usual practice for all of the land designated as educational use to be made available to the school. However, it is ultimately for the council to agree with the academy trust how much of the land is ultimately leased."

Mr Pakes wrote on X that this "has been known all along" and that the council delaying the decision was "deeply disappointing".

The council has made several attempts to resolve the issue in the past few years.

It agreed last year to allow all of the land called Area C on its map of the fields to be fenced off, but the decision was later overturned.

In 2020, it tried to fence off part of the fields but later admitted it was wrong to do so, saying it was a "breach of the statutory trust on which the land is held for the benefit of the public".

A Freedom of Information request from 2024 showed the city council had spent more than £100,000 on the saga.

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