Stoke Lodge campaigners hit with 'vindictive' £90,000 legal bill | Bristol Live

"We believe this allocation could have a chilling impact on other community groups seeking to defend important matters of principle"

Residents who have engaged in a 13 year campaign with a Bristol school over access to its playing fields have been hit with a legal bill of more than £85,000 after they lost a court case to keep the fields open. The We Love Stoke Lodge group called Cotham School ‘vindictive’ for convincing a judge he should make them pay 90 per cent of the school’s legal bill.

The judge in the case, which was decided last month, ruled that city council taxpayers should only pay ten per cent of the legal bills, because the city council was 'at best a junior partner' in the court hearing

That has left Katharine Welham, who joined the legal action on behalf of We Love Stoke Lodge alongside the council, facing an £85,203 legal bill which will have to be paid within ten days, while the council itself has been ordered to pay £9,467. The costs ruling follows a comprehensive victory for Cotham School in its challenge to the council’s decision to give the Stoke Lodge playing fields ‘Town or Village Green’ status, which ended last month.

The judge in the case has now ruled on how much each of the three parties should pay. His Honour Judge Matthews said he decided legal costs should be divided between the two parties - Katherine Welham and Bristol City Council - who were defending the case.

After ruling that Stoke Lodge was not eligible to be made a Town Green, he also accepted a Cotham School application that when the two defendants are made to pay a share of Cotham School’s costs, it should not be split 50-50, but instead should be split 90-10.

The council and Cotham School had already signed a pre-hearing agreement that their costs should be capped at £20,000 whoever won.

The judge agreed, and in his ruling pointed out that while the council did little to expand on their defence of the Town Green decision, Katharine Welham’s legal team’s case was the main reason the hearing took so long and was so involved.

“Ms Welham led the defence to Cotham’s claim,” the judge said. “She challenged every part of the claim that she could. She (and her supporters) contributed far more than BCC in terms of effort and research.

“BCC was at best a junior partner in the enterprise. It would not fairly reflect the degrees of participation in the litigation for me even to order both defendants to pay Cotham’s costs jointly and severally, much less to order BCC to pay all of them. Instead, I will accede to Cotham’s suggestion that BCC should pay ten per cent of Cotham’s costs and Ms Welham 90 per cent, to be subject to detailed assessment if not agreed,” he said.

That suggestion has been called ‘vindictive’ by We Love Stoke Lodge. “The school, vindictively in the community's view, sought an order from the court that Mrs Welham be ordered to pay 90 per cent of the agreed costs budget, rather than, for example, a 50/50 split,” a spokesperson for WLSL said.

“Shockingly, despite the fact that the council was the First Defendant in the litigation and was robustly defending a decision that the council itself had made, the court has agreed to Cotham School's request and ordered significant costs against the community. We believe this allocation could have a chilling impact on other community groups seeking to defend important matters of principle,” they added.

“The exact amount of the costs to be paid has yet to be finalised, but is significantly less than the amount of public money actually spent by Cotham's senior leadership in its quest to get rid of village green status at Stoke Lodge,” WLSL spokesperson said.

“And for what? Headteacher Jo Butler finally admitted in court that there is no requirement to fence playing fields, and in fact denied that she had ever said there was. And it remains the case that four public rights of way have been found to exist across Stoke Lodge.

“As a result, Cotham School cannot be at all confident, even having succeeded for the moment in court, of ever being able to put up perimeter fencing - but fortunately it now agrees that this is not a safeguarding requirement in any case," WLSL claimed - a claim disputed by Cotham School.

“It could potentially fence a smaller area for its own use, similar to its current arrangement at Golden Hill, but had it taken a less hostile approach, it could have done that in 2018 without spending so much education money,” she added.

The judge in the case also confirmed that Katharine Welham’s permission to appeal the ruling was refused.

A statement from Cotham School said: “We welcome the recovery of public funds that were necessarily expended in protecting the school’s playing fields, which are required for our delivery of PE lessons.

“We now look forward to resuming use of our playing fields as soon as possible,” they added.