Improve score on playing fields Government told

The challenge was made last week by the independent charity the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA). It said that statistics published at the end of Labour's first term in office showed that out of 164 applications to dispose of school playing fields, just five were turned down by former education secretary David Blunkett, then responsible for playing fields, a role now taken by Baroness Ashton.

Elsa Davies, NPFA director, said, 'These figures mean the Government is standing up for the schoolchildren in about 3 per cent of cases. After the talk about protecting school playing fields, it's not a very impressive record.'

In its General Election manifesto the Labour Party criticised the Conservatives for presiding over the sell-off of more than 5,000 school playing fields in England, but Labour were not blameless in this issue, Mrs Davies said. 'All the Government has done is talk. It set up two committees - the playing fields monitoring group at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the school playing fields advisory panel at the former Department for Education and Employment.

'The former has led to the statistics being available but there are no regularly-published figures on the loss of playing fields to date, while the latter has only reached the point of agreeing the panel's terms of reference, and still the sell-offs have continued.'

The NPFA said the largest number of applications to dispose of playing fields are in the West Midlands, followed by Yorkshire, the north-west and the south of England. It added, 'Pressure on land in London appears to be on the decline, representing only five per cent of the total.' The NPFA described the national picture as 'bleak' and said it was likely to remain so 'unless the Government is persuaded to listen, hear and take decisive action'.