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Background on the Open Space
Background on the Open Space
The Orchard, Broadmoor Lane has a strong history of community involvement, and local residents have fought for decades to ensure its long-term protection as a public open space.
A campaign in the 1990s to save the Orchard from development was followed by a campaign in 2014-2015 to safeguard the land as a Local Green Space in the B&NES Local Plan for 2015-2035.
Save our Park!
Save our Park!
In May 2017 the public open space fell into limbo when it was confirmed that the Council would not adopt the open space at Broadmoor Lane, and at the same time the then-landowners Redcliffe Homes also informed us they would no longer maintain the public space, including the play area or grass-cutting. On 15 May 2017, the play equipment was dismantled on health and safety grounds.
The community rallied and led a successful fundraising campaign for new play equipment, and we safeguarded the future of the Orchard as a community space by overseeing the transfer of ownership of the space to Bath Recreation Ltd. Friends of the Orchard now work collaboratively with Bath Rec to manage the site.
The playground on Broadmoor Lane is a valuable community asset used by hundreds of families. A successful campaign was led by volunteers who raised £30,000 for new playground equipment. The new play park was installed in 2018, for the enjoyment of the community. Thank you to Bath Rec and to all those who donated funds.
The Orchard, Broadmoor Lane has been treasured by generations of children as a place to play. The land was set aside as public open space during the 2002 housing development on Broadmoor Lane (99/00755/FUL) which created 37 homes built by Redcliffe Homes. An earlier application for 47 dwellings at the site, with smaller open space provision, was refused following a community campaign throughout the 1990s to preserve the open space. The small play park in the open space was installed by the developers as part of a planning condition, as required by the Council.
The open space is a heritage orchard with well-documented ecological and social value. In 2015, the Broadmoor Lane Residents' Association sucessfully applied for the open space to be protected as a Local Green Space within the B&NES Core Strategy: this gives the land similar protection to green-belt.
It came to light during our Save The Park campaign that due to an omission by the Council Planning Inspector at the time of the housing development appeal in 2000, no long-term plan was ever formally agreed for the maintenance of this public open space. The developers Redcliffe Homes were obliged to maintain the land for a 10-year period which ended in 2012. In 2017, after years of negotiation between the developers and the Council, the area was in limbo, with the Council stating it had no legal obligation to adopt the open space, and the developers having no obligation to maintain it for public use.
By March 2017, our 'Save our Park' petition (on-line and hard-copy) had been signed by over 700 people, and we handed the petition in at a full Council meeting on 23 March. Two representatives of the action group each gave compelling speeches at the Council meeting: Graham Thomas-Widger (Acting Chair of the BLRA) and 12-year old local resident Alice Murphy. The campaign gathered considerable publicity, and the special role of children in furthering our campaign was highlighted by the Bath Chronicle in a two-page spread in January 2017 and an article in March 2017, as well as in Families in Bath.
Despite the enormous public response to the campaign, it was confirmed in May 2017 that the Council were not in a position to adopt the open space. Having exhausted all reasonable options in lobbying the Council to adopt the space, we were delighted when we were approached by Bath Recreation Trust (now Bath Recreation Limited) to work with us to save the land as a public open space, and help us to install a new play area.
We oversaw and welcomed the transfer of ownership of the Orchard public open space from the developers Redcliffe Homes to its new owners Bath Recreation Ltd, thereby safeguarding the land from further development. A new community organisation was formed in 2018 - the Friends of the Orchard - which carries on the community spirit of the now-retired Broadmoor Lane Residents' Association, and works in collaboration with Bath Recreation Ltd to maintain the grounds of this treasured public open space on Broadmoor Lane.
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