ROKEBY residents are furious after they woke on Monday to find a digger carving trenches into their local playing fields without warning – in preparation for a controversial new school which not yet been given planning permission.
Three-metre-deep trenches have been dug in Rokeby Sports Ground, between Fawsley Leys and Long Furlong, as part of survey work for the new Rugby Free Secondary School (RFSS).
But members of Sustainable Hillside and Rokeby Education (SHARE), a group opposed to the new school, say the work has been done without notice or consultation – and has ‘decimated’ the field, leaving it dangerous and unusable.
Rokeby resident Amy McTeigue said she and her five-year-old son were astounded to see the digger drive past the neighbouring Rokeby Primary School and turn into the field.
She said: “The digger decimated the field, without any evidence that it would be returned to it previous state.
“My son cried himself to sleep because he was so upset that the field was ruined and because he didn’t want his school to go anywhere.”
Another parent of a Rokeby pupil, who did not wish to be named, said children at the school were in tears at the prospect of their school sports day being cancelled.
Fellow parent Eleanor Marsh added: “Parents were promised that there would be no disruption from the new schools being built, but the children are already being affected before plans have even started.”
Resident and SHARE member John Robson said the work started with no warning to local residents or councillors.
He said: “This seems like the kind of secrecy that is becoming standard behaviour with regards to the ‘proposed’ building of schools on Rokeby playing field.”
He added the engineers he spoke to said they were told the field was unused, and only rudimentary restoration work would be carried out after the surveys were finished.
Ward Councillor Bill Lewis added he was concerned the bridleway had not been cordoned off, and there were no warning notices at the field entrances.
A spokesman for Warwickshire County Council, which owns the field and is responsible for schools across the county, said: “We are confident that the Education Funding Authority would expect their contractors to have finished their work and returned the field to its original state before the children return from the half term break.”
If plans are approved, the first year of RFSS students will move to the former Rokeby Infant School site on Anderson Avenue in September. The current, neighbouring Rokeby Primary School will be adapted to create a new Special Free School, due to open in 2017.
Rokeby Primary will relocate to new buildings on the sports ground. The permanent new site for RFSS, due to open in September 2018, will then be developed alongside the primary school.
