Nursery loophole means even more school playing fields face sell-off

RISING numbers of playing fields are in danger of being sold off to make way for nurseries because of a new policy loophole.

Ministers can now fast-track school playing field sales – if they help deliver the Government’s promise to give parents free childcare.

The changes make it easier to build nurseries on school playing fields amid an expansion of free childcare for three and four-year-olds.

But campaigners warn that budgetary pressures could incentivise hard-up schools to sell land to private nursery providers to generate extra cash.

Currently, councils wanting to sell school land must first secure the approval of the independent School Playing Fields Advisory Panel.

However, the Government has introduced a policy that allows ministers to bypass the panel if the land transfer helps meet its commitment to give parents 30 hours’ free childcare, according to the Times educational Supplement.

A recent example is the disposal of a small area of playing-field land at St George’s Church of england Aided Primary School in Lincolnshire.

The disposal, signed off in April, was designed to ‘enable the provision of a nursery to meet the demand and delivery of 30 hours’ free childcare’. Charities Fields in Trust and Learning through Landscapes, which both sit on the playing fields panel, have condemned the policy change.

Carley Sefton of Learning through Landscapes said: ‘The current state of public finances, especially those associated with education, is putting enormous pressure on schools to explore any option of raising funds.’

Fields in Trust intends to use a ‘deeds of dedication’ – a legal mechanism to ensure a landowner cannot change the use of a space – to help protect school playing fields.

Robert Goodwill, the minister for children and families, said yesterday: ‘This is only relevant for those applications that provide additional nursery places.’