Battle of the Countryside

The Somerset town of Frome has seen many battles in its history, from the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 to a campaign to win Packsaddle Community Fields in 2025.

Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy 

Transcript

Peter This week we're in Frome in rural Somerset, talking to a group of passionate villagers. For the past three years, they've taken up their pitchforks in a spirited attempt to prevent their precious green space, a beautiful patch of common land on the edge of this historic town, being tarmac-ed over for a housing estate. Now developers should be aware that Frome is no stranger to battles and to winning them. Back in 1685, the doomed rebellion by the Protestant Duke of Monmouth against Catholic King James took place around here. Twelve rebels were hung, drawn and quartered in the marketplace in Frome. More recently, Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein, the British officer in charge of the D-Day landings in Normandy, had his HQ here for a while during World War Two. So on the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, we headed up to the fields with our dog Fernie to find out what the fuss was all about.

Felice We're here today with Toby Culff, Bee Walley and Stuart Herne. We're in the beautiful Packsaddle fields, and we're talking about their future.

Peter Toby, first of all, you're the head of the group opposed to the idea of building 74 houses here on these ancient fields. How did this campaign come about? It seems you've won the war so far. But I gather there's a final battle that remains. Tell us about it and why feelings run so high here?

Toby Yes. Hello, I'm one of the co-founders of People For Packsaddle. We would, yes, describe ourselves as being a community group. We were formed in 2022 when it came to light that a housing developer was speaking with Somerset County Council, as it was back then, about plans to build houses on the space that we're sat in now on this beautiful day, which we call Packsaddle Community Fields. We've spent the last nearly three years now campaigning against those plans and trying to impress upon people the value of the fields as they currently exist, and also the vast potential that they offer to the town for the future.

Peter I'm right in thinking that for fifty years it's been, in effect, common land. The public have been able to walk through the fields. What's the history of the fields?

Toby Yes, that's basically correct. So about fifty years ago, in fact, almost exactly fifty years ago, a local farmer, the owner of Packsaddle Farm, which you can still just about see over the farms there, sold a large proportion of his farmland for housing. And we can see some of that housing from where we sit. But there's eight and a half, nine acres of green space that was left, and that was sold separately to the council at the time. It was retained by the council for, yes, fifty years, notionally, as being a site for a potential new school in the area, but basically the council left it and it was adopted by local people, by the local community. It has, in that fifty or so years, become a wild, rugged, beautiful space, as you can see it today, which is used extensively every day by local people, their families, and is much loved by the people that live close to it.

Felice Can you tell us who owns the fields today?

Bee At the moment, currently they're owned by Somerset Council and have been for, like Toby said, for at least fifty years.

Felice They've recently been made an Asset of Community Value. Can you tell us, Stuart, what that means?

Stuart Yes. So there's a law in the UK where if communities have regularly used a space – it could be green space like this, it could be a building – and they can prove that they've used that for a certain number of years, they can have it registered as an Asset of Community Value. What it means is that the owner of that land or building, if they want to sell it, they have to meaningfully engage with that community and give them a chance to be able to buy that. 

It also does have some rules around what you can and can't do in terms of development. So for us here at Packsaddle Fields, what it does is it underlines and proves, I guess in law to a certain extent, that the community has used it and is using it for a certain period of time and for a wide range of things that benefit the community. 

So when it comes to defending against putting houses on here, whilst it doesn't mean that they're not allowed to build, it gives us a good case to say this is open community land that should be preserved, and there are certain local planning laws that do protect open spaces that are used by the community. So that's been really helpful for us to have that designation.

Peter The Covid years, did that affect for them in terms of space to breathe, if you like?

Toby I think those of us living close to green spaces like Packsaddle Community Fields, realised in that period how important these green spaces are. Important for community connection, important for family bonds, and important just as a means to maintain mental and physical well-being. 

Frome, like a lot of towns, has been gradually denuded of a lot of its green spaces because of the need for housing development. And part of our campaign has always been to say that towns need to maintain the right balance of green spaces, open wild spaces like this one, so that people, as we are today, have the ability to get out and to take care of themselves.

Peter So who uses these fields?

Bee The community really. So young families with their kids, elderly people who find it difficult to get around very easily. To have these fields on their doorstep is absolutely crucial, as it is for people with young children. Otherwise, they'll be walking with their pushchairs and their whatever, dogs and things over to the showground, which is a bit far away, and it's extremely beneficial for people's mental health as well. 

We've had lots and lots of people tell us how valuable they've been for people who have been grieving, people who just don't feel safe, they feel really safe here. They go out on their own, no problem. Kids come out and play. It's just a very safe and lovely welcoming space.

Toby I think the really key thing about Packsaddle community fields, and again, has formed a big part of our campaign is, as you can see, looking around today, it's the accessibility of the space and it's the fact that the space is really one where, irrespective of your age and your physical capacity, you can get out into nature. You can have a good walk, you can see other people in your community. 

The other point we've tried to impress on people, too, is that the demography of our area is one, as Bee said, lots and lots of young families and also lots of people at the other end of the scale, of more senior years and not all terribly active. And this is a great space for us all to come together. 

It's been phenomenal for community connection and it's so, so important, we think, particularly for people living by themselves in maybe the later years, to have this space on their doorstep, to get out and to see other people and to look after their physical wellbeing. 

We've heard from hundreds and hundreds of people as part of the Asset of Community Value hearing, and after that, just how critical it is to them now and has been for the last fifty or so years.

Felice What sort of wildlife have you all seen around these fields?

Bee Well, we've had sightings of a barn owl recently. There was one a few years ago, but they disappeared and then have come back again. So there's been plenty of sightings of the barn owl, although I haven't seen it. So barn owl we've had, I saw a buzzard yesterday flying out of a hedge and being mobbed by a crow that was five feet away from me. 

When the umbellifers get really big in these fields, they get full of birds because they're in there feeding on the various insects on the umbellifers. We've had all kinds of birds: chaffinch, woodpeckers. The woodpeckers will be feeding on the meadow ants, actually, that are in this field. You can see the whole field is full of anthills, which really helps with diversity, and all kinds of other plant life can grow on the mounds because of the way they are slightly separate and different from the grassland. So woodpeckers feed on those. 

What else have we got? I've got a whole long list here. So blackcat, bluetits, buzzards, chaffinches, jays, kestrels, long tailed tits. All these animals have been seen here. Frogs, newts and lots of bats. And importantly, some of the bats have been very protected. We've seen a greater horseshoe, and a lesser horseshoe bat have been spotted. We've done about three or four bat counts, haven't we, I think so far, and they've all had really good results.

Peter What about bigger beasts? We've seen a fawn up here; a young deer. We saw one yesterday here. 

Toby If you come at the right time of day, a lot of people come up here and walk very early in the morning, six or seven in the morning. So you can still see the deer here. You'll spot the occasional hare. I bring the kids out six or seven in the evening after their tea, and we try and spot the rabbits. The hares are obviously slightly more occasional visitors, but you can still see the rabbits bouncing around quite frequently, which kids always love. As Bee said, it's really become a good home for owls recently. We’ve got a family of tawny owls. You can hear them late at night making their distinctive song, and the barn owl has been a real draw for visitors. You can see him or her at the start of the day or the end of the day. The kids too, have loved seeing him swooping around these fields.

Peter Frome is a town with no suburbs, so to speak, so you can go from the centre and you can be in the countryside in minutes.

Toby That's true. We're about a fifteen, twenty minute walk here from the town centre. What's interesting about Frome, for anybody that knows, it's incredibly hilly, so you don't have to go too far in any direction before you hit a big hill. Which again, is why these fields are so important to local people. Because although there are other green spaces within half a mile or so, to get to them is quite a trial, particularly for young people with buggies, or older people.

Stuart I think what makes these fields so special and so rare now, particularly in towns, is that it's wild, untouched countryside. So a lot of countryside will be farmed by farmers and there'll be public footpaths running between. You can walk round the whole of these eight acres. They're not mowed, they're not kept down by animals. So they're truly wild, it's very rare to have wild spaces at all. But secondly, it's very rare to have that in a town, within a stone's throw, a walk from the town centre. So we're very privileged to have this here.

Felice And then a developer came along. Their plans were refused in January. So how come there's an appeal, Toby?

Toby Yes, you're right. Somerset Council refused the planning application in January at their meeting, and they did so by quite an overwhelming vote. The process, though, it's very frustrating for people like us, is that the developer is, in these circumstances, entitled to appeal, and indeed they did avail themselves of that opportunity. So we're due to go to appeal in front of an inspector in August of this year, August 2025, and we will have to again make the case why Packsaddle Community Fields are so important, and why we feel it's essential that they're protected for future generations.

Felice If you win, what are the plans? What happens next?

Stuart So we've been working with a local wildlife consultancy for some time to develop a vision for the fields, and that vision has a number of elements. Most importantly, it has to maintain the community aspect, which we can do by making sure that it remains accessible, making sure there's clear paths that they can walk in. But most importantly, it retains the wild aspect as well. So what we don't want it to become is an overly managed type space. So we're keeping that wild aspect. 

That actually has piqued the interest of one of the Wildlife Trusts. They've been talking to us about something which is very exciting. It's a new thing that they've been getting involved in, which is to build community nature reserves. So what that means, if we can defend against this appeal and have the right to buy the land, they'll give us their expertise and work with us with all of the things that we need to make that happen. So that's really doing things that cannot just maintain the nature that's there, but even encourage even more nature, but still have that accessibility for the community. 

They've got that expertise in knowing how to balance both because we know it can be done. It's used for a huge range of different things, so we'll probably end up having different areas of it, some that maybe don't allow dogs, and some where dogs can walk, some that are quieter spaces to attract a certain type of nature, some that are more community meet-up kind of spaces. So it all depends on us to successfully overturning the appeal and hopefully, if we make that happen, we can go to the council and say, ‘Look, we want to now buy this as a community and make this community wildlife space happen.’

Peter How are you funding this? Is it by local people just giving money?

Toby It's exactly that, yes. It's been down to the generosity of local people and local businesses to support the campaign all the way through. So the appeal that I've mentioned already, which will be heard in August, will be represented as a Rule Six Party during those proceedings by a full legal team and by expert witnesses. All of that is paid for by the generosity of local people. 

We've worked very hard over the last couple of years with the support of the community, on countless fundraisers. People have knitted, they've made jams, they've made cakes, they've attended bingo nights and quiz nights to keep that flow of money going. Because, as Stuart made the point rightly a minute or two ago, we've always tried to be not a campaign group, which is just about saying ‘no’. Instead, what we've tried to be is a campaign group that says, ‘No, this isn't the right place for the houses that you're proposing. We have a brighter, better alternative for this space’. The objective has always been, as Stuart's just touched upon, to bring these fields into perpetual, permanent community ownership. We want to buy the fields and we want to make them better for the future.

Peter It's cost a lot of money. Can you say how much money?

Toby It has cost an eye-watering sum already, tens of thousands of pounds, and it will cost us tens of thousands of pounds more. And if, as we hope will come to pass, we eventually find ourselves in a position to talk to the council about buying this beautiful piece of land for the community, it will cost us a great deal more again. But we feel that it's really, really important to firstly put up the fight and to say that ‘no, we understand the need for houses and we're not insensitive to that at all. In fact, we're all local people and most of us, like me, have got children and we want there to be affordable houses for our children in the future.’ 

But it's about the right houses and the right places for the right people. And this, I'm afraid, is another demonstration of just avaricious development.

Felice The fields are not just for locals, though. Visitors can come as well.

Stuart Yes, we're lucky in Frome to have a huge amount of visitors, not just from the UK, but internationally as well. It's become a destination attracted partly because there's a monthly market here called the Frome Independent, which has attracted wider and wider attention. That has a whole range of interesting things for sale, street food. It's become almost like a mini festival that happens in the town centre every month. 

So people come for the weekend, every weekend, and then while they're here, they can spend ten minutes just walking to this beautiful space. It's right on the doorstep of the town centre. So it's not just for local people. All the people that come to visit Frome have access to this space as well. It's not gated, it's open that people can walk into. And we love having people here and they're very welcome.

Toby And what we especially like about Packsaddle Community Fields is we feel it's reflective of Frome character, of Somerset character in that, as you can see, it's not manicured and it's not twee. It's a very characterful and it's very unusual. And we think if you come to Frome for the weekend, for the Frome Festival or for one of the monthly markets that Stuart's talked about, it's a great place just to come and relax for a little while, and you'll always find people here from the local community to engage in conversation.

Felice And we're very close to Bath and Glastonbury…the Glastonbury Festival, so people come all the time, all year round, actually.

Peter Yes, we've even had a Paul McCartney performing in our local venue here.

Toby There's some good things announced already for this year's Frome Festival, and I've heard down the grapevine that on Friday, July 11th, there's going to be an exciting band so far unannounced, that we'll be doing a gig down at the Cheese & Grain, which is our local venue. 

So yes, I agree with you that the West Country is a fabulous place to visit. There's a lot of interesting places, Glastonbury and Bath being a couple of them, but also Wells and Bruton and plenty of others. So yes, we always encourage, we're dedicated Fromies as probably, as you probably can tell. And we say when you come into Frome and taking in the sights and the sounds, come along to Packsaddle Community Fields and see these too.

Peter Tell us a bit more about Frome itself. It’s got a reputation for being a bit Bohemian. The Times newspaper described it not long ago as being ‘the least lonely town in Britain,’ which is probably a very good description.

Stuart I think there's two things that I think are very exciting for me personally about Frome. One, it's a very creative place. There's lots of artists and musicians here. I'm a musician myself, and it's partly what attracted me. But it's also very community based and it's won various awards about great places to live, and I think it's because of that community aspect that's very interesting. 

One particular example that I could give is the local doctor's surgery, created some waves in the press for coming up with this idea of prescribing community activities to people that were suffering from illnesses, depression. So they would say instead of giving you antidepressants, ‘Why don't you go and join this choir or do some gardening as part of this group?’ And it was hugely successful. I think hospital referrals went down by about a third, and I think other places around the country have started rolling out a similar thing. 

So that's just one example of the kind of community things we see in Frome. Above and beyond that, it's an absolutely beautiful place. I think someone told me it has one of the highest rates of listed buildings, which are protected buildings because they're so historic, in Somerset. So it's a beautiful place to come and visit. It's got a great community.

Peter Yes, I read that in fact, it has more listed buildings, grade listed buildings than Bath.

Stuart There you go. And you can see that when you walk around. It's not one of these very modern, soulless towns. It's got lots of history. It has a river running through it. But I think for me, it's the people that make it what it is. When I first moved here, I was really taken aback by that people would just say ‘hello’ to you when they walked past and get into a conversation, even if you don't know them. And we're very proud of that. And the fields are kind of an expression of that. As you're walking around, there'll always be a hello, and you can have a chat with someone you don't know.

Felice Yes, when you're walking in the fields. Everyone's friendly. Everyone talks to each other. Whether they've got children with them or they're walking their dogs. It's also a great place for picnics, artists could come and paint here as well.

Bee Yes, that's true. And they do, actually. Somebody just recently posted a picture of the oak tree on our Instagram, because they'd come up here and loved it and drawn a beautiful picture of it. I've seen other people up here drawing, photographers come up here and use it a lot. 

Again, as Stuart was saying, the community up here is reflected the kind of town reflects it. Because like you say, whenever you're up here, you can just talk to anyone and they will all happily pass the time of day with you and have great conversations; it's lovely.

Toby What's really interesting about Frome, to someone like me that's been here over forty years, is that it's a real mixture of not two parts, exactly, because they come together very well. But there's old Frome, if you like, people who have lived here a very, very long time. There's people living around the borders of these fields that have lived around here on this estate for forty, fifty years and used the fields for that whole period. 

But it's also, as you've said, too, been frequently listed in The Times and The Telegraph as a trendy place to move to. So you've had lots of people coming from Bristol and London, so there's been an influx of money, yes, but new restaurants, new pubs, new creativity. 

It's the way those two sides, if you like, of Frome, have come together and made something I think is quite unique. That's reflected, too, if you walk around Packsaddle Community Fields, you'll come across people who have raised their kids here, gone to the local schools and have been there their whole life. But also people that have been here two, three, four years and have really embraced everything Frome is about. 

I think to come to Frome and to meet the people here is to really experience that difference between the kind of classic Somerset market town, but also your kind of trendy need-to-get-out-of-London set too. I think it's been really fascinating, period.

Peter But it's not Bruton. Bruton is a very well-known town that is very smart. We wouldn't describe Frome as smart, would you?

Toby No. I think part of Frome's charm, as I've said already, is its character, its modesty and the fact that it does things in a kind of low profile way. 

Bee I've spoken to about three people in the last week who said that they moved to the area, this particular area, because they'd found these fields, so they'd come out and seen these and thought, ‘Right, yes, I'm buying that house.’ Actually, I can say that I am one of those people. I've been here ten years now, lived in Frome for nearly thirty. But yes, it was these fields that clinched the deal.

Toby So the three founding priorities of People For Packsaddle was always climate, conservation and community. We've talked a bit about conservation already. We've talked at length about community, but we're also mindful, too, that we're in the middle of a climate emergency. That climate emergency has been recognised by Somerset Council itself. 

So part of our vision for the future of Packsaddle Community Fields is to make this an exemplar for what you can do with open spaces, in terms of sequestering carbon, building new trees. So part of our exciting plan for the fields, a plan, as Stuart has said, that's been supported by a local wildlife trust, is to put in a community forest which is still accessible to the community, but will also make a contribution to the fight against climate change.

Bee I just wanted to quickly add that, also, grassland itself is an amazing carbon sequester, so planting trees is great – just got to make sure you plant the right trees in the right places, a bit like houses, but grassland is also amazing for that very point and we've got a lot of that here. Eight and a half acres of it.

Felice If people want to find out more about Packsaddle Fields and the campaign, what's the website they can go to?

Stuart They can go to www.peopleforpacksaddle.org And it has all the information there. If you want to support the campaign, it explains how you can do that and how you can donate.

Peter Thank you all very much.

Toby Thank you.

Felice That's all for now. If you've enjoyed the show, please share this episode with at least one other person! Do also subscribe on Spotify, i-Tunes or any of the many podcast providers – where you can give us a rating. You can subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any of the many podcast platforms. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. We'd love you to sign up for our regular emails. By the way, we're no 7 in the Top 20 Midlife Travel Podcasts.

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