More school playing field land has been lost as a result of the government’s free childcare policy, it has emerged.

Two schools were granted permission in July to sell or lease land in order to improve nursery provision in their areas, a government publication reveals.

The news comes after Tes revealed concerns last month about a new “loophole” that allows ministers to fast-track school playing field sales if they help with the government’s policy of giving parents 30 hours of free childcare.

Tes reported that the government had introduced a new policy that allows ministers to bypass the independent School Playing Fields Advisory Panel if the land transfer helps deliver the childcare commitment.

The first such sale was approved at a school in Lincolnshire in April, but groups trying to safeguard school playing fields were quick to raise concerns that more could be in the pipeline.

Helen Griffiths, chief executive of the charity Fields in Trust, told Tes: “[We] would hope that this isn’t a trend that we will see more of as a result of the pressure to achieve nursery provision.”

But it has now emerged that the government has approved two more requests to transfer school land in order to make way for extra nursery places.

The Department for Education’s latest list of school disposals shows that Intake Primary School in Sheffield was permitted to sell a “small area of playing field…to enable the provision of a private nursery to meet the demand and delivery of 30 hours free childcare for working parents of 3 and 4-year-olds in the local area”.

“This project was approved for government funding and the consequent disposal was considered and decided by ministers without consideration by the playing fields panel,” the decision notice adds.

In a second case, Holland Park Primary School in Essex was allowed to lease a “small area of land not used for sporting activities for the provision of a nursery”.

The notice says that the income from the lease would be used to “fund improvements to the school’s existing educational and sports facilities”.

Holland Park’s disposal would have been signed off directly by the DfE because academy transfers are not scrutinised by the playing fields panel.

Anthony Welch, the school’s headteacher, told Tes that the transfer was approved by Sport England, and related to a “piece of land which was overrun” and that Holland Park “didn’t have the finances to improve”.

He said 25-year lease allowed the nursery to “redevelop a part of the school land that was to all intents and purposes derelict”, and that Holland Park had “agreed a licence as part of the lease to allow the [school’s] children to access those facilities”.

Robert Goodwill, minister for children and families, said: “Across the country we are already delivering the 30 hours offer with great success - over 15,000 children are benefitting from a place and our evaluation shows that providers are committed to offering this to parents.

“As part of our commitment to the 30 hours offer we have introduced a new policy for handling requests to transfer playing fields to both maintained and private nursery providers. This is only relevant for those applications that provide additional nursery places.”

Intake Primary School was contacted for comment.