What’s happening with the Lower Field?

Every day as I pass the sad, boarded up, fenced off lower school on the main road into and out of Totnes I wonder what is actually going to happen to the site?

So does Devon county councillor Jacqi Hodgson, who is now on her SIXTH Education Secretary, upon whom the fate of KEVICC now rests. (Devon county council is the education authority even though KEVICC is now an academy and not under DCC’s wing any more. ) Campaigns have been launched to save the lower field and the Elmhirst building for the town. But so far – frustrating silence.

In 2021 the entire site was listed as an asset of community value by South Hams District Council.  (Although it was also in the local plan for 130 houses which would be built on another part of the site).

In April 2022 Totnes Town Council offered £2.5 million for the lower field and the building. Soon after that, the Dart Valley Learning Trust put it on the open market.  The sale was being handled by Torbay Council’s development arm, TDA Group. ( This year the group was folded into Torbay Council. )

Then in September 2022 the land and the school changed hands – from the Dart Valley Learning Trust to the academy consortium Education South West, which runs not just King Edward VI Community College (KEVICC) but seven primary schools and four other secondary schools, and an “all through” college in Dartmouth.

At that time the lower field was one of several parcels being offered for sale by the school to fund much needed refurbishment of the “big school” over the road. With cash from Government unlikely, the school said it needed £2 million just to maintain buildings and was hoping for £7 million from the sale of 14 acres of land.

Totnes Pulse reported then on the meetings held by the community and the school, which was insisting that it had to sell for the highest amount available. There was a groundswell of opinion at public meetings that Totnes needed its last flat green open space to be kept for the town, not built over.

Jacqi Hodgson, who is also a town councillor, told me this week: “Over the past few years, almost monthly, I have sought updates from the relevant officers at DCC so that I can update Totnes Town council and the other parish councils in my patch and other interested parties. Each month their replies have varied from no decision as yet, we await the General Election and more recently, still no updates. Over the last 3-4 years that this has been in the balance, I have personally written a detailed overview of this matter to 5 Secretaries of State for Education, making a plea on behalf of the community for these sites and building that comprise Lower Field, seeking support for this open green space and heritage building to remain in public ownership and remain as open space and heritage building to benefit the local community and educational needs.
“However, it is the gift of the Secretary of State for Education (on the advice or otherwise of the Dept for Education) to approve and sign over school estate/educational land for other purposes (e.g. for the building on instead of recreational open space) and secondly whether the school can sell the land from public to private ownership.  This is what I have been writing to the Secretary of State about, making a strong case for its remaining as open space and against being sold out of public ownership.”

So Bridget Phillipson, the new Labour education secretary, has to make the decision. How high up on her to-do list Totnes is we can only guess.  Perhaps our new MP Caroline Voaden might give her a nudge?

I also asked Jacqi who will get the money if the site is eventually sold.

She said: “Who will be the financial beneficiary of the sale has always been said to be KEVICC, however the website of Education South West Academy says all funding within each school belongs to them;.”

The school roll is smaller and the lower school building surplus to needs. It may be outdated – it was kind of old fashioned when I went there many years ago – but letting it sit there , a boarded up eyesore, is such a waste when there is a real need in Totnes for community buildings and work spaces.