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Who are we?
We are a team of parents and residents who have been fighting this application since it came to our attention.
The website and successful crowdfunder to pay for a professional planning consultant at an anticipated South Glos Development Management Committee meeting is not associated with the school.
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Our aim is to save the natural green space that is the playing field for today and future generations.
This website has been set up to advocate for the playing field's preservation.
It is intended to express honest opinions based on publicly available information – council planning documents, responses to requests for information from the council and DfE and policy documents - and raise awareness about the proposed development.
Concerns in relation to child safety, environmental impact and community consultation are matters of public interest and are reflected in the many objections on the council planning portal.
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KEY ISSUES
Here are the top five:
1. Road safety/safeguarding
Council says: Children's road safety will be mitigated by shared surfaces - namely the road into the development.
Parents and residents say:
The council has contradicted itself - it dismisses safeguarding concerns in relation to the development and yet used it as a reason to get approval to dispose of the field.
​In November 2023 when the council applied to the Secretary of State for Education for a General Consent Order agreement to sell off the field, the council claimed twice in that document that this was to ‘improve safeguarding’, saying pupils would not need to cross a narrow little used access lane to reach the field [which would be subsumed into the new development.]
The council then put in a planning application in May 2024 to build a two way road access to 36 dwellings and 62 parking spaces opening out on to Charborough Rd, interrupting the walking to school route, just metres from the school’s entrance.
If safeguarding was an issue for an access lane with no traffic in November 2023, the subsequent planning application is also a safeguarding issue.
The council knows this because it has its own Active Travel Policy, as does the government. The policy commits to improve road safety around schools, cut pollution, congestion, it even incentivises families and schools to actively promote walking and safe routes to school.
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Ultimately, huge concern has been expressed by many objectors including repeated objections by the former CEO of the Olympus Academy Trust about the obvious dangers of road traffic collisions involving children.
2. Safeguarding/proximity of school to development
Council says: A mix of mitigation measures will be used to minimise impact, including boundary treatment, a buffer zone and the development is 45 metres from the school.
Parents and residents say:
The development is approximately 14 metres from the school boundary to the back of the nearest house. The play areas will be overlooked by two and three bed houses.
The 'boundary treatment' consists of a 1.8m wooden fence.
The 'buffer planting' referred to is misleading. There is no buffer zone placed within the new development – there is no space. Planners appear to be referring to existing space already within the school, the grass area below the MUGA with existing planting. As the Design and Access Statement says ‘shrub habitat has been planted along the boundary to help create a buffer zone between the two sites.’
3. Biodiversity loss
Council says: There's a 39% loss forecast but a nature reserve elsewhere in South Glos is planned.
Parents and residents say: A near 40% loss of habitat and wildlife is unacceptable and is at odds with the council's own declaration of a climate emergency, so too the Department for Education's Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy 2023, which focuses on increasing nature based learning and boosting biodiversity.
Biodiversity Net Gain, which requires developments in England to increase biodiversity by 10%, has been in place for around two years. The government recently announced changes to this policy.
4. In keeping
Council says: the development is in keeping with the 'local vernacular' and nearby buildings.
Parents and residents say: This is misleading. The developers have cherry picked examples of the worst development not immediately on Charborough Road. The immediate nearby housing is 1930s semi-detached and Victorian. Quoted examples instead at three storey houses on the former Filton Police Station site and an apartment block on Southmead Road.
5. Community consultation
Council says: This development has been in the making for years. The law says we do not need to consult. An online consultation ran via the council website in March 2024.
Team save our school playing field says: The Department for Education (DfE) has a presumption against the disposal of school land, particularly playing field land. Best practice guidelines for 'disposing' of a school playing field involve 'open and transparent' consultation.
In March 2024, the council sent a consultation letter to the school about seeking permission from the Dept of Education to dispose of the playing field. No mention was made of a housing development. The online consultation, which ran for six weeks, launched a day later. Neighbours weren't aware of this until a Freedom of Information response in July 2025.
In May 2024, neighbours received a letter, sent late, after the planning application had been published giving locals around nine days to respond to about 100 documents.
In July 2025, a Freedom of Information response said that there had been 136 views of the consultation webpage and 14 responses were logged. In Sept 2025, an FOI review response said that the council was unable to verify where the consultation had been viewed from: ‘The council’s consultation platform records only the total number of webpage views and the number of comments received. The location data was not turned on in Google Analytics. Therefore, the council does not hold the requested information and is not [legally] required to create it.’ The same FOI also said that: ‘Filton Town Council was not notified individually of the consultation.’
Debate about consultation at a public meeting in October 2025 led to the Department of Education confirming that the council does not have a legal responsibility to consult due to using a general consent order.
What is a general consent order?
'GCOs are used to allow certain types of minor land transactions - for example, disposals granting access to utility companies, short-term changes of use, and like for like swaps.'
As it stands, we understand the disposal has not been completed as a final form is outstanding.
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