Barry Gardiner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2016-07-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications for her consent for disposal of school playing fields by maintained schools or academies her Department has (a) received and (b) approved in each of the last five years; and in how many such cases she has written to the school concerned to remind them of their obligations to submit an application in the correct way.

Edward Timpson

The data is not held in the format requested but there are layers of protection of playing field land. These include legislative safeguards in the School Standards and Framework Act 1997 and the Education Act 1998 and, in the case of academies, further safeguards in academy funding agreements. The Secretary of State must give consent prior to the disposal of public land which is currently used for any school or which has been used for a school in the last eight years. We publish a list of departmental decisions on applications for consent to dispose of school playing field land since May 2010 on GOV.UK at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-land-decisions-about-disposals.

The Secretary of State does not routinely write to schools to remind them of their obligations; it is the land owner’s obligation to ensure that it meets its legal responsibilities.

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