Leader of Council fails to deliver promises on community access
Dear Friend,
After 33 years of the community tending Pensford Field, we applied in January 2026 to strike off the Trust from the register at Companies’ House . We have donated our funds to local environmental charities, closed our bank account, and drawn up our final accounts. So the end of the road for the Pensford Field Environmental Trust and the start of a new era for Pensford Field under which we had hoped community access would be preserved.
However, we have now seen the new lease to Dose of Nature (disclosed following a Freedom of Information request on 5 January 2026) and it is clear that the Leader, Cllr Gareth Roberts, has failed to deliver the promises he made at a Council meeting on 1 October 2024 in response to a question from Cllr Clare Vollum about future access of the local community.
“The Council can assure all local residents that when the Lease is transferred to Dose of Nature for Pensford Field that the fields will be accessible to those residents, local community schools, nurseries and organisations who use or benefit from the field now.”……… ”The reason I read it out is, that not only does it nail my trousers to the mast, it also nails the trousers of the Officers to the mast. So that residents can I hope take some consolation or some assurance that this is what our intention is, it’s on the record. Thanks.”
The Leader replied to a further question from Cllr Clare Vollum: “people will notice no real change, um, in the re-assigning of the lease, that their enjoyment of the field will continue as they have done before.”
At the same meeting a further question was asked by Cllr Andree Frieze about future access to Pensford Field. This is the answer she received from Cllr Roberts: “I can only repeat the assurances which I have given many times and in writing to members of the Trust. We will continue to try to ensure that all of the rights, the enjoyments which are currently enjoyed by groups, by individuals, by schools are maintained. The lease is not yet written. We are in a position to bake these into the contract, hardwire them in, to make sure that these assurances, these verbal assurances become written assurances and, of course, when it’s a contract we can manage that contract and ensure that if there are shortfalls, if there are failings, then we can hold people accountable.”
So this is how the Council has “baked” its public promises into the new lease:
Under the terms of the new lease (unless the Council and Dose of Nature agree otherwise):
Local residents may only access the field Monday–Friday, 9am–5.30pm, excluding weekends and summer evenings — precisely when public access matters most.
Community groups, including schools and nurseries, are no longer allowed to use the studio at all for meetings, workshops, or well-being activities.
Community groups must now pay to book the use of the field and access the toilets. Schools are exempt, but nurseries are not. Previously, use of the field and access to toilets was free for schools, nurseries and youth groups.
Even paid access for community groups is restricted to the hours 8.30am–5.30pm, Groups such as Scouts, Guides, and others who meet in the evenings have effectively been excluded.
These are not minor or technical changes. They amount to a substantive reduction in community access and are a clear departure from the assurances given by the Leader on 1 October 2024.
One of our members wrote a letter dated 20 January 2026 to Cllr Clare Vollum raising these problems to which she replied on 26th January 2026 enclosing a side letter to the lease countersigned by Dose of Nature dated 23rd January (shortly after we had raised these issues). The side letter permits weekend and evening access for local residents but does not deal with the other three issues raised. Cllr Vollum stated that Dose of Nature is now paying rent and “will need to balance it’s books and make decisions on whether to make any charges to groups and schools on a case by case basis.” So this is the Leader’s definition of “ensuring that all the rights, enjoyments which are currently enjoyed by groups, by individuals, by schools are maintained.”
The fate of Pensford Field was sealed behind closed doors in July 2024 at an internal Council meeting of the Services Chairs Meeting (understood to be the chairs of all the Council Committees) but the paper and minutes of those meetings have only just been provided following Freedom of Information requests dating back to late 2024. The Information Commissioner ordered disclosure on 1 December 2025 and the Council provided the documents on 7 January 2026.
The paper for the Services Chairs Meeting on 19 July 2024 stated under paragraph 3.10 that the “As a first step it is proposed that the Leader and officers meet with PEST (sic) to express the Council’s support for DoN expansion and to test if there is scope to reach a compromise (although this is thought to be unlikely).” This approach was never made. The minutes of that meeting state that “Chairs were supportive of the proposal, but mindful of the likely pushback on making the change, for which the Council and the politicians should be aware. It was noted that PEST could take an adversarial position and would argue that the environmental benefits for the site would be compromised.”
So what happened next? Instead of approaching us first or treating this as a Key Decision needing Committee approval on the basis that it was likely to be controversial, the Council decided not to tell anyone at all but to terminate our lease in September 2024, all behind closed doors. No wonder these documents have been withheld for over 12 months.
We have also secured a decision dated 9 January 2026 from the Information Commissioner’s Office requiring disclosure of internal emails so we may get these documents soon - unless the Council appeals! But why is the Council spending legal costs resisting disclosure? What is there to hide or protect? This saga is even more tortuous than the release of the Epstein files.
We posed a number of questions on these points to the Leader at the Council meeting on 27 January 2026 (public questions) but the replies were defensive and generic. There was no acceptance that the lease was defective nor that the withholding of documents was unjustified as illustrated by three adverse decisions. We were left feeling so stunned by the lack of acknowledgement of the problems in the lease that a member was moved to write to the Leader on the following day pointing out the precise provisions in the lease and why what he had said at the meeting was incorrect. We await a reply.
Please do not forget to use the field as much as possible. If you come across any elected representatives, please do quiz them on why the Pensford information is not yet forthcoming and why taxpayers’ money is spent defending the indefensible. But also ask why the promises made about nursery and community usage have not been properly delivered and demand that they change the lease. With your help, we will maintain Pensford Field as a community resource and we will hold the Council to the promises made in October 2024.
Dose of Nature are holding a community coffee morning on 11 February between 10am and 1pm at Pensford Field. So if you have any questions about how this will all work in the future, please go along.
It will be time soon for us to say farewell. Thank you so much for your incredible support over the years.
Kind Regards,
Sarah
Sarah Atkins
Chair
Pensford Field Environmental Trust Ltd
