Council spends £100k on plans to fence off fields

Campaigners want to maintain public access to Werrington Fields in Peterborough

A city council has spent more than £100,000 over the past five years on plans to erect controversial fencing around public fields, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

Between 2019 and 2024 Peterborough City Council (PCC) spent £106,398.55 on Werrington Fields, the figure includes fencing, surveys, legal advice, planning applications and an unsuccessful bid to the government to change the use of part of the fields to public land.

Werrington Fields are used by Ken Stimpson Academy for sports and by local residents.

Since 2019 the school has wanted some of the fields to be fenced off to safeguard pupils, but campaign groups have called for the land to be shared.

The council has previously said it would pay for a fence to be erected around some of the fields

The issue is still yet to be fully resolved and further expenses could be incurred while a long-term solution is found and implemented.

The council spent £9,000 on a section 77 application to Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, which was a bid to change the use of part of the fields to public use so that another section of the land could be fenced off for the school.

This request, however, was denied.

The council made several other attempts to resolve the issue. In 2020 the authority tried to fence off part of the fields, but it later admitted it had been “wrong to proceed with its proposals” as this was “a breach of the statutory trust on which the land is held for the benefit of the public”.

A PCC spokesperson said: “Officers are reviewing the circumstances around Werrington Fields and we expect to be able to provide an update in the coming weeks.”

The authority previously said it would pay for a fence to be erected on the fields, despite Ken Stimpson Academy now being run by the Four Cs Academy Trust rather than the authority.

In its last comprehensive update on 22 March, PCC said that Four Cs intended to fence off the entirety of the land that is being used for educational purposes, but has been “supportive of a community use agreement to allow public use outside of school hours”.