Shortcut puts pitch at risk

Pupils crossing a park to get to school in Southwell are causing damage to sports pitches, according to the town council.

Southwell Town Council is considering roping off one of the football pitches at War Memorial Park, Bishop’s Drive, during wet weather to prevent Minster School students crossing it.

At a meeting of the council’s finance and policy committee, Mr Andy Gregory said that Southwell City Football Club nearly lost the use of one of the pitches after recent wet weather because a muddy track had been created by pupils walking across the field.

He said: “When we have wet weather I would have thought it would be common sense to use the footpaths rather than walking across the park, but they still do it anyway.”

Mr Peter Harris said that the school’s head, Mr Phil Blinston, had asked pupils not to cross the park when it was wet.

He said: “With the school moving to the one site at Nottingham Road all the children from the north side of the town are cutting across the park.

“There are around 400 to 500 children crossing the park twice every day.

“We need to rope the pitch off, which won’t stop all the children walking over it because some will just climb over, but it might reduce the number.”

Mr Gregory said that he did not want to completely discourage pupils from walking over the park.

He said: “It is a nice walk for them over there but they just need to exercise a bit of common sense and stick to the paths in the wet weather.

“They must be so muddy when they get to school.”

The committee agreed to ask Mr Blinston to remind pupils not to walk across the pitch in wet weather and to look into ways of roping the pitch off once a community groundsman was appointed.