Local Area Referendum (Disposal of School Playing Fields) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-01-22
Topic: Housing
Thomas Christopher John Pursglove (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make some progress, but I will come on to the specific issue of replacement later on in my remarks At the moment, the Government are being very bold in their commitment to additional housebuilding and the right to buy. Indeed, as the Minister knows, in Northamptonshire—not only in the county, but in my constituency—we are at the forefront when it comes to building new homes. In fact, Corby is the fastest-growing town in the whole country, a clear sign of our strong and stable economy built under a Conservative Government and evidence of the fact that our area has been quite ambitious in grappling with the Government’s agenda and in trying to support housebuilding where we can. I am, however, a very firm believer—in all the time I spent in local government prior to entering this House, I continued to stress this point—that alongside housebuilding there must always be the infrastructure in place to support it. By selling off school playing fields, not only do we lose the space for schools to expand—Education Ministers openly acknowledge the fact that we have far too many landlocked schools, and this is a particular concern to my constituents in Oundle—but with housing growth we inevitably need more open space and greater pitch provision to meet growing local need Clearly, land for housing should be chosen carefully and not at the expense of land that exists to serve the local community. As such, the Bill comes at a good time to help to safeguard school playing field land. On a number of occasions since my election in May 2015, I have referenced a local case where Northamptonshire County Council has been working towards selling off part of the playing field at the site of Oundle Primary School. This has been met with huge opposition not only from local residents but from Oundle Town Council and East Northamptonshire Council. Unfortunately, this work is still ongoing, but luckily the local campaign against it continues to sustain its momentum. Indeed, the petition has now received over 4,000 signatories and is still growing—bear in mind that this is a town of 4,500 people. This point comes back to an earlier intervention: there is such overwhelming support for the playing field land not to be sold that it is wrong to ignore that fact through the statutory processes that exist I am led to believe that the case will go before the Secretary of State for Education to decide whether this playing field can be sold off. I am in the process of drafting my very strongly worded submission against the sale and I hope the Secretary of State will take it, and the monumental scope of the local campaign, into account when reaching her decision. The playing field continues to be well used by Oundle Primary School. Over the years, many sports clubs have used the land to fulfil weekend fixtures, and weekend and week-night training opportunities for adults and young people. The land will continue to be well used by the local community, as long as it is retained for that particular purpose. There is a real lack of sports provision, pitches and green open space in Oundle for people to get out there and get active. In Northamptonshire, we are already plagued by a situation in which far too many sports teams have to go out of county to fulfil home fixtures. That is very, very wrong. They should be able to play their home games in the vicinity of where they come from.