Rugby councillors back plan to hand Rokeby Playing Fields to residents as part of legal agreement

Councillors at a full council meeting later in the year will now have the final say on nearly five acres of Rokeby Playing Fields which the council had leased from Warwickshire County Council for 17 years until plans were approved for Rugby Free School.

The land at Long Furlong was a detached school playing field which had become surplus to education requirements some years ago when the Catholic school that used it closed.

A report written for this week’s June 1 cabinet meeting explained: “As Warwickshire County Council had no direct plans it was leased to Rugby Borough Council for use as sports fields. In reality the land came to be used as public open space by the local community who greatly valued it as such.”

It added that there was ‘vigorous opposition’ from local residents to the plans for the new school with many wanting to retain their access to the open space.

The report went on: “As not all of the ‘open space’ was being used for the proposed school development it was decided to retain a portion of land as Public Open Space in an attempt to at least partially address some of the local residents’ concerns.”

The transfer of the land was a condition of the plans being approved and it is expected that the land will be transferred into the ownership of Rugby Borough Council and protected as green space in perpetuity via a legal declaration with Fields in Trust.

Lib Dem group leader Cllr Jerry Roodhouse (Paddox) asked: “It’s recommended that it goes to council but I’m hoping that in between, the officers could meet with the ward councillors because there are a number of legal issues still outstanding. They are too detailed to go through tonight but hopefully they can be resolved by the time it gets to council.”

Council leader Cllr Seb Lowe (Con, Coton and Boughton) agreed and the item was approved by cabinet members.