Prue Leith takes aim at prep school’s hockey pitch plan
PRUE LEITH has objected to a school’s planned hockey pitch a quarter of a mile from her home, arguing it will compromise the “rural setting” and be “a crying shame”.
The Great British Bake Off presenter, 81, is trying to block the proposal by Kitebrook Preparatory School in the town of Moreton-inmarsh, Gloucestershire.
Ms Leith has lived in the town since 1972, and recently moved to Middle Brookend Farm near by. Her new home appears in the series Prue’s Great Garden Plot, which began this week and follows Ms Leith and her husband giving their two-acre garden an extensive makeover.
The modern barn conversion is a stone’s throw from the school’s grounds, and Ms Leith argued that the 15-metre floodlights over the proposed pitch would shine directly at her property when she objected to the original plans in June this year.
She also said the run-off rainwater from “such an enormous field” would “inundate” the local gallops, and that mothers driving SUVS would block the lane near the school.
After the plans were amended, she submitted a second objection last month, which read: “The newer application is slightly less offensive than the last but I have since discovered that the proposed site is an ancient ridge and furrow field which would be destroyed if planning is granted. We are extremely lucky to be one of the few places in England with glorious ridge and furrow fields dating from medieval times. It would be not just a crying shame, but an absolute crime to destroy a patch of ridge and furrow, let alone a huge field... though I understand the need for sports facilities for children, I think, in spite of the alterations to the original plan, that the proposed development is much too large.”
She said that as “prep school children cannot play on full size pitches... I can only assume that this venture has turned into a potential money-spinner for the school... and the intention is to let the hockey pitch (of which there are no others in the area) to outside clubs.
“One of the joys of living in a rural setting is the dark night skies so I was pleased to see that the proposed stadium lights are not to be.”
Evenlode Parish Council near by has also objected to the plans, saying they “do not demonstrate any wider benefit to the particular rural economy in the vicinity.”
West Oxfordshire district council was contacted for comment.