A public footpath that has run through a primary school playground for up to half a century is being diverted on safeguarding grounds.

St Mary’s CE School in Yate received planning permission last year to install a security fence with the intention of having the route changed to run around the edge of the site, a council meeting heard.

But the work was finished quicker than expected and it could no longer use the planning process, so it applied to the local authority under its highways powers.

South Gloucestershire Council public rights of way and commons registration sub-committee has now issued an order to divert the footpath.

Members heard this was formalising what had been the situation on the ground for many years.

Officers told the meeting on Thursday, September 9, that the 63-metre section of the path’s route had cut through the grounds since at least the 1990s and probably since the school was built two decades earlier.

However, it had long been unusable because of a dense hedge and a chain-link fence on Church Road, as well as a low-level picket fence in the school grounds.

The diversion will take it down School Road cul-de-sac from the school entrance, through the edge of the adjacent car park and onto Church Road a few yards from where the existing, impassable route emerges.

Councillors were told no objections had been received to the proposal and the footpath could be altered because it would provide privacy and security for the school and was just as convenient for the public who were “likely to feel more comfortable with a path which is not running through school grounds” and that they were already using the alternative route.

Sub-committee member Cllr Mike Drew said: “I don’t think this path has been accessible as long as I’ve been a councillor, which is nearly 40 years.

“So I don’t think there are any problems in diverting it as I suspect most people don’t realise there’s a formal path there, and the diversion is the route they would use anyway.”

A report to members said: “The grounds on which the request for an order was made are to enable the school grounds to be securely fenced off from public access for safeguarding purposes.”

It said the school would pay for the costs of the diversion.

If there are no objections to the advertised order then it will be confirmed, but if there are any then a further report will be submitted to the sub-committee.