Save Our Fields - Charterhouse Residents Association

If you do not know the background to this battle or would like a recap, please click on the following link, Keri-Anne's Facebook notes, which will take you to a Facebook page that has the original preamble. You can also get more in depth information from Dave's Facebook notes and up-to-date information from Charterhouse Fields Facebook page and our You Tube channel:

Latest from the Charterhouse Residents' Association Leaflet

You may have heard or read reports about the result of the campaign to Save Charterhouse Fields. We thought we should keep you informed.
The Council have granted the lease of part of the fields to Blue Coat school.
Does this mean we have lost?

• No! *They had to add in to the lease the rights of residents to use and access the land.
  Our rights are clearly stated.
• *Also, all the northern half of the fields will now be registered as 'Public Open Space'.
• *The school and council have declared there is no intention to fence off any fields.

So, the lease talks of our rights and the council say they agree with dual use of the fields by both the school and the community.

BUT ... Those concessions we won from the Council are not legally guaranteed, indeed parts of the lease contradict our rights. It is helpful to Coventry citizens that our rights are stated, but we cannot be confident that in the longer run those rights will be legally protected.

That's why at a recent packed meeting the residents' group unanimously agreed to continue to support Councillor Dave Nellist's application for the fields to be made a Village Green. That way, public rights to the land would be established in law.

In summary, Charterhouse Fields was public land left to and bought for the citizens of Coventry. We have not yet won full legal rights to the land because of the resistance of Coventry council, a council that is supposed to be there to represent us! But we are much further ahead in terms of our rights of use than we were in April when the council decided to give the land to the school.

WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US AND THE SCHOOL?

The school say if we win Village Green status, they won't be able to use the fields. But this is not so.
We residents have never disagreed with dual use by both ourselves and the school.
Currently we believe we should refrain from using areas in use by pupils for lessons. If Village Green status is won, we will give the same agreement to the school as applies currently, organising restraint of our use, certainly until the school's future use of the old allotments is determined, and beyond if agreed.
All a Village Green would mean is our long term legal rights to the area are established.

So we continue to urge residents to use common sense and not use areas pupils are using for lessons and keep the fields clean. We should continue to show responsibility and coexist with the school.

Thank you! Can we thank you deeply for all the brilliant support from the neighbourhood for the campaign to keep the fields public. If we and Councillor Nellist hadn't reacted so quickly in March/April it could have been very different. The council told us there was nothing we could do, that if we resisted we may lose more of the fields. The marvellous campaign proved all their arguments wrong.

We forced a U-turn on the council. But it was through gritted teeth that they conceded points to us.
They refused to even consider our hard earned evidence at the recent council meeting. That is why the campaign must go on. We cannot let down our guard.

Best wishes, Charterhouse Residents' Association.

So, if you live in Coventry or have lived in Coventry and have used the fields at some point, then we may like to speak to you about using your comments in order to support our legal campaign. Also, if there is any support you would like to give the campaign, then please drop us an email on Charterhouse.Fields@gmail.com and we will be in touch.

To reiterate the last preamble:
"Now is the time for us to unite against the powerful few in order to protect what is ours. Today, it's the Charterhouse Fields the Council are willing to sign away, but tomorrow it could be YOUR Open Space.
Together, we can win!"