Conservative authorities have been involved in six times as many sales as those of other parties since May 2010Conservative-led councils have been responsible for selling six times as many playing fields as other parties – despite the administration’s promise to employ the Olympics to constitute a sporting legacy for children.Of the 35 applications for college playing areas to be sold off since May 2010, 30 of the schools were from Tory council areas, four in Labour-run authorities, and one Liberal Democrat, said the Labour party.Labour also claims that in the five cases in which the Conservative education secretary, Michael Gove, overruled the advice of the independent expert panel on the issue, the community authority making the appeal was Conservative-led.Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, said: “Of direction, the absolute blame for these sales lies with Michael Gove and the administration, who have divide the schools capital budget by two thirds.”It is not surprising that in order to deal with absolute pressure on college places and plug holes in their budgets, some schools are considering putting classrooms on pitches or selling fields to developers.”Writing on the ConservativeHome website on Sunday, John Bald, an education consultant, defended the Tories’ record, saying that of the five schools where Gove had overruled the expert panel, one application was withdrawn, two were from schools that had relocated and no longer needed their ancient grounds, one was a piece of land that had not previously been used for sport, and one was a sloping area of wasteland – though the latter condition was more contentious, and no final choice had been made, noted Bald.Sales of college playing pitches are a extended-running issue: it has been reported that between 1997 and 2010 Labour governments oversaw the sales of more than 200, and from 1979 to 1997 successive Conservative administrations were in charge when 10,000 pitches were sold.Gove has also relaxed rules on the minimum outdoor hour that schools must provide for team games.Campaigners dread that the fresh rules – which were approved on the eve of the Olympic Games – will pave the path for the further sell-offs of playing fields and endanger the ability of schools to provide sport for prospect generations of children.The Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist Dani King told the Letter on Sunday this weekend: “Playing fields are training venues for prospect Olympians. They can be used by runners to prepare for competitions during college age.”Although playing fields didn’t affect my cycling training, they played a part in helping to keep me fit and that certainly helped me to get where I am.”It would be a shame if children today didn’t have the same opportunities. Closing playing fields is going to have a negative effect on kids, it’s sending the incorrect message to them.”They aren’t doing enough exercise these days and that is only going to get worse if they don’t have anywhere to do it,” she said.A administration source said: “This is just the usual hypocrisy from Labour. Andy Burnham has admitted that playing fields do have to be sold to develop sporting facilities. The bottom border is that this administration has only approved sales if the college has closed, has merged or if equal or bigger facilities are being place in their place.”College sportsConservativesSchoolsMichael GoveEducation policyJuliette Jowitguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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