OPPOSITION has sprung up over a council scheme to build a primary school on a Trowbridge field which had been earmarked as an outdoor recreation space.

Coulston Estates are looking to build 200 homes at Elm Grove Farm, off Drynham Lane, and Wiltshire Council’s strategic planning officers have recently been talking to them about building a school on the nearby Elm Grove Field, to help with the town’s primary school shortage.

But in 2012, the field was dedicated as a Queen Elizabeth II field, as part of a scheme to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee and to create a grassroots legacy after the London Olympics.

If a primary school is to be built there, Wiltshire Council must get consent from Fields in Trust, with whom they signed the 2012 Deed of Dedication, and must also provide an alternative piece of land with equivalent or better facilities in the same area. At Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Graham Payne, said: “Do we really need another school on this side of town? We have four junior and three senior schools within a one-mile radius of this site.

"The need for new schools is on the Ashton Park side of town. I ask you to look sensibly at this and recognise the importance of this dedicated playing field to the community in Drynham as the last sizeable area of open recreation space in the ward.

“To swap this land for another piece in the control of the developer would be of no advantage to residents and destroy another ‘green lung’.

"It would, however, mean that the developer could access their housing land directly from Wiltshire Drive during the construction phase, to the detriment of local people.”

Jane Scott said: “We don’t have evidence about projected school numbers. I have real problems with this - I think it should be debated at full council in July.”