The land is owned by Somerset County Council and is officially designated as the playing field for Beech Grove School, although it hasn’t been used as such for many years. Over the passage of time the County Council have allowed Taunton Deane Borough Council to spend a huge amount of money draining it and bringing it back into use. The Rugby Club now use it regularly and hire it from TDBC on the occasions we play on it.

The Club would now like to culvert the ditch between the field and the Athletic Ground and realign the pitch in an effort to get much needed extra playing space. Unfortunately the County Council are now pointing to the fact that this is still “education” land and as such are reluctant to give us any kind of go ahead to do anything. They have also told us that we would need to submit an application under Land Drainage Consent.

Looking at this guidance it looks like the information we will need includes relevant site and other plans, including cross sections with fairly detailed information, and we've seen in the guidance that they suggest that any plans are prepared by a relevant surveyor or engineer. This is all very frustrating, especially when the County didn’t guard the use of the land quite so jealously when TDBC wanted to spend money on it. The Club also don’t want to get itself into a position where we spend money on drawing up plans if the County Council aren’t going to let us proceed. We continue to work, with the enormous help of Councillor Andrew Govier, to find a way through this situation and will continue to do so in an effort to improve the overall facilities at the Club”.