Meeting with Council and Dose of Nature

Council Meeting on 29 November 2024

We met with the Leader of the Council (Gareth Roberts) Dose of Nature, Kew Society, Clare Vollum and various officials on Friday 29 November 2024.

The Council has neither reversed its decision to terminate our lease nor decided to consult more widely with local residents, schools and other users of the field. It has however agreed to continue to engage with us over the terms of the Lease to Dose of Nature and we hope that our contribution will help secure the future of the field.

Ahead of the meeting, we sent a letter by email on the 25 November to Gareth Roberts, the Leader and other attendees of the meeting, including Kew Society and Dose of Nature, highlighting that we thought community consultation should occur in parallel with the termination period - our notice period ends on 29 September, 2025. We also included a list of what would need to be included in the new Lease in order to preserve access for the community and to maintain the site as a nature reserve.

We are optimistic that the majority of these terms will be included (although we did note that a planning application is to be made for a human shelter).

We are still waiting for responses to our Complaint to the Council dated 16 October and our Freedom of Information Requests dated 3 November. The Leader promised to chase these up.

If you haven’t already watched the film made by an independent documentary maker, Martin Baker, called Battle for Pensford Field Part 1, please do. We have contributed information as has Dose of Nature but this is not our film and was not commissioned or published by the Trustees. It has had over 800 views so there is quite a lot of interest in the future of this lovely space.

Lastly it is with regret that we are not holding a Wassail in January - we previously asked you to hold the date of the 5 January. We have simply had too much to do in relation to the termination of our lease to organise this event. We hope you will understand.