Cornwallis Academy, in Boughton Monchelsea, near Maidstone, Kent, has been unable to use the pitch since August, or rent it to community groups on evenings and weekends.
When the school applied for planning permission for the pitch in 2022, a key element was to make it available to outside sports clubs after school hours, which raised concerns from Maidstone Council about increased disturbance for neighbours.
The school provided a survey suggesting the only real disturbance would come from the referee’s whistle and not cheering or jeering supporters, and it offered to introduce a “no-whistle” policy on the pitch for games played outside of school hours.
The council accepted the proposal, granting permission in January 2023 on the condition the “no-whistle” policy was applied.
However, whistles were used outside school hours and neighbours repeatedly complained over the disturbance.
When one resident reported the council for failing to enforce its planning conditions, the authority threatened enforcement action against the school.
Because Cornwallis Academy had breached its planning permission it stopped the school from being able to use the pitch at all.
You live in an urban area. Noise from others living in the urban area around you will be inevitable.
True, some noises rise above the civilised limit – a new outdoor nightclub say. Some are below it – whistles from the sports pitch.
Be off to Calais with you all.
We live opposite the local private school’s playing field. The noise doesn’t bother me much, certainly not the whistle. And the excited noise of children playing is fine. The faked guttural roaring of male P.E. teachers can be a bit wearing, though, especially when it’s evident they have little control over the pupils. What makes me close the windows and move to a different room is the caterwauling shriek of lesbian female staff trying to project authority.
When Cornwallis was defeated at Yorktown he just went off and conquered a swathe of India.
The 5th formers at the girls’ school down the road sometimes play netball.
The noise doesn’t bother me
But I had to buy a tripod because my arms got tired holding the binoculars.
Simon N: « What makes me close the windows and move to a different room is the caterwauling shriek of lesbian female staff »
Otto is admirably honest about the binoculars. When you move to a different room is it to go upstairs for a view of the caterwaulers disporting themselves?
Recall that the Southampton FC stadium proposal at Stoneham was thrown out due to inadequate transport links.
The site was at the junction of the M27 and M3 and adjacent to a major railway station and Southampton international Airport.
Nothing at all to do with the well to do local residents.
Cornwallis Academy? Boughton Monchelsea? That takes me back. In my day, it was Oldborough Manor—it ain’t worth a tanner, as we used to say. I used to go tadpole collecting in the ponds around there. Blast from the past. There were playing fields in the vicinity back in the fifties when the school first opened. If someone has a problem with the occasional whistle, the problem is with them.
TMB
Usually I start off in the kitchen where I make sandwiches and a flask of tea.
TMB:
I would if they were the same type of lesbian you get in the videos, but there seem to be two distinct breeds.
“Be off to Calais with you all.”
Or you agreed to abide by certain conditions (which you in fact suggested in the first place) in return for the planning permission, which you’ve failed to do, so now you lose the permission.
If the school didn’t like the ‘no whistles’ planning condition on its planning permission it should have applied to remove it, and if refused, gone to appeal. Not just ignored it. Or it should have enforced it on the people it was taking money from for pitch hire.
” Noise from others living in the urban area around you will be inevitable.”
During the day maybe. Not all evenings and weekends as well. These sports pitches are hired out to private groups for 5 a side kickabouts etc, which take place in the evenings and at weekends. And will be constant all year round, as the pitches are usually well lit, so play can take place until 9pm or even later. And pitches are in high demand, so there will be few unbooked slots. You’re going to have loads of 20 and 30 something lads arriving and leaving in cars, slamming doors, shouting at each other, before during and after the games (all imagining they are the next Messi). I can see that would be a right nightmare if you happened to live right next to it. You’d never get any peace at all.
I saw this story. I also took time to look at the sat image on GoogleMap. The article doesn’t tell you the whole story. The academy actually has quite extensive sport fields. You can seem them marked out for various activities. But they’ve chosen to site this pitch right up one end with it within 20 meters of people’s gardens. And as Jim says, they’d obtained planning permission for use between 8AM & 10PM weekdays, 8AM & 6PM weekends. They’re actually saying they expected it to a resource for various & varied local groups. It’s not just a pitch, it’s a full flown business. And one can’t help but notice it’s been sited with pitch center line, lined up with the relevant part of the academy building, for that purpose. They had the ground available to site it well away from houses, but they didn’t.
HTF’d they make that cost 700k? I can’t see much more than half that there. An attempt to strengthen their case?