Playing fields are a vital community resource, photo (public domain)

Playing fields are a vital community resource, photo (public domain)   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

At the final council meeting before the election, Labour councillor Lisa Mulherin, on behalf of Leeds council executive, finally confirmed that the council has dropped plans to build a free school academy.

This was welcome news, especially given that just a week before she had been unable to confirm this.

This victory is due to the pressure of ordinary people, organised through the Save Fearnville Fields campaign with thousands of leaflets distributed and a well-attended public meeting which forced the council to cease ignoring the 69% of respondents to their own consultation opposing the proposals.

We have now established a Friends of Fearnville Fields group to ensure the fields remain a well-used community resource.

We also intend to campaign to make sure the plans to redeveloped Fearnville leisure centre as an up-to-date health and wellbeing centre, as proposed by the council at the same time as the free school academy plans, are delivered upon.

We would like to express our thanks to your paper for its coverage of our campaign.

Iain Dalton, chair, Save Fearnville Fields